India’s Supreme Court has listed the batch of constitutional challenges to the Promotion and Regulation of Online Gaming Act, 2025 for final hearing, three months after the law banning every form of online real-money gaming came into force.
The decision was taken on Wednesday by a three-judge bench of Chief Justice Surya Kant and Justices Joymalya Bagchi and V. Mohana. The bench directed all parties, including Solicitor General Tushar Mehta appearing for the Union government, to complete their pleadings before arguments begin. The court had deferred the matter in December, citing the number of petitions and the complexity of the questions raised.
The Act prohibits online money games regardless of whether they turn on skill or chance, removing the distinction that Indian courts used for decades to keep rummy, poker and daily fantasy sports outside the reach of state gambling laws.
The law under challenge
Parliament passed the Act on 21 August 2025 and the President gave assent the following day. The Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology notified the Promotion and Regulation of Online Gaming Rules, 2026 on 22 April 2026, bringing the full framework into force on 1 May 2026.
The Act bans offering, facilitating and advertising any online game played for money, and bars banks and financial institutions from processing payments connected to those games. Offering an online money game is a cognizable and non-bailable offence carrying up to three years in prison and a fine of up to INR 10 million, roughly $115,000 at current rates. Advertising one carries up to two years and INR 5 million. Section 8 of the Act created the Online Gaming Authority of India, staffed by representatives of several ministries, to oversee the regime.
The same law promotes esports and what it calls online social games, which is where the second dispute before the court begins.
Operators argue the ban ends their business
The industry petitioners include Head Digital Works, which operates A23 Rummy. Their case is that a total prohibition amounts to civil death for licensed operators and breaches Article 19(1)(g) of the Constitution, the right to practise any profession or carry on any trade or business. India ranked among the largest online gaming markets in the world before the ban, with a real-money sector that employed tens of thousands of people and drew significant foreign investment. Several companies have since shut down or moved to free-to-play formats.
Those petitions were originally filed in the Karnataka, Madhya Pradesh and Delhi High Courts. The government moved to consolidate them, and the Supreme Court transferred the cases to itself in September 2025.
The lead petitioner in the batch is evangelist Dr K.A. Paul, who is asking for a uniform central framework covering online and offline betting and gambling rather than the current mix of state law and the new central ban. His plea argues that endorsements from cricketers, actors and influencers pull children toward betting products. The bench has issued notices to the Union government, Google India, Apple India, the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India, Dream11, Mobile Premier League and A23 Games, among others.
The enforcement gap
The court also agreed to hear a public interest litigation from the Centre for Accountability and Systemic Change (CASC), which wants the government ordered to block betting and gambling platforms it says are operating in India under the cover of social gaming and esports.
Advocate Virag Gupta, appearing for CASC, told the bench that a separate bench led by Justice J.B. Pardiwala had already directed the Centre to respond to the plea. He said a list of 2,000 gaming applications alleged to be running betting and gambling operations in India despite the ban has been placed before both the court and the government. CASC is also represented by former Uttar Pradesh Director General of Police Vikram Singh and advocate Shourya Tiwari.
That claim puts the two sets of petitions in an awkward relationship. Licensed operators argue the ban destroyed a taxed, regulated industry. CASC argues the same ban is being ignored by thousands of unlicensed apps. Industry research put unregulated online gambling turnover at $5.9 trillion in 2025, and India has consistently ranked among the largest sources of that traffic.
What the ruling decides
The outcome sets the boundary for how far a central government in India can go in prohibiting an online activity that individual states had regulated differently, and whether the skill-versus-chance test retains any legal force. A ruling upholding the Act would close the Indian market to real-money operators for the foreseeable future. A ruling against it would leave the government to rebuild a framework for a sector it has already dismantled.
The case is being watched outside India. Brazil’s Workers’ Party has tabled a bill to ban fixed-odds betting less than two years into that market’s regulated life, and other governments weighing prohibition over licensing will read how India’s highest court treats the trade-freedom argument.
Neither side has a date for arguments. The bench will fix one once pleadings are complete.
Source: Supreme Court of India
