MediaNama’s take: The Promotion and Regulation of Online Gaming Law, 2025 represents what can only be described as a nuclear option to address the online money gaming concern. Yet in a remarkable twist, this “nuclear option” has achieved its intended effect without the government ever detonating it. Gaming companies like Winzo, MPL, and Games 24×7 have voluntarily shuttered their real-money gaming operations, not because they’re legally required to, but because of what appear to be restrictions on their financial operations.
Once the law goes into effect, it will restrict banks and other financial institutions from facilitating transactions for such games. Based on what lawyer Jay Sayta suggests, it seems like banks have stopped facilitating these transactions even before an official notification. This makes one wonder, to what extent will the government lean on the Reserve Bank of India to enforce the law?
The ban on online money games under this law extends beyond India’s borders, also disallowing foreign players in the industry from providing their services in India. Despite a ban, users could potentially just use VPNs to access these games after the government actually implements the law. To prevent this, the government would end up relying on banks and other financial service providers to refuse these transactions.
What’s the news:
We missed this earlier: While the government has notified the Promotion and Regulation of Online Gaming Law, 2025, the law has yet to come into effect because it has not specified a date for its implementation. Section 1, sub-section 3 of the gaming law, states that it will “come into force on such date as the Central Government may, by notification in the Official Gazette.”
Without such a notification, none of the sections of the law, including its ban on online money games, restrictions on advertising, and facilitating financial transactions for such games, are in effect.
No ban in place, but real money gaming companies close shops:
Despite the fact that the ban on online money games is not in effect, companies that provide these games have made a range of changes to their operations. For instance, companies like Winzo, MPL, and Games 24×7 have stopped operations for online money games. While they are allowing users to withdraw money, users can no longer make deposits within these games.
“Almost all the RMG [real money gaming] companies, however, stopped operations on or around August 22 since banks and payment gateways started threatening the companies that they will stop doing business with them and potentially freeze their accounts, even in the absence of the law being brought into force, citing some informal diktats from the RBI [Reserve Bank of India] and government agencies,” technology and gaming lawyer Jay Sayta explained in a conversation with MediaNama.
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Besides shutting down real money gaming operations, some…
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