Tamil Nadu Assembly re-adopts Bill against online gambling
Recently, the Tamil Nadu Legislative Assembly has again passed a bill related to the ban on online gambling.
For the first time this bill was passed in 2022. The Governor had returned this bill saying that it was against the constitution and judicial decisions.
Earlier, a state-level study in Tamil Nadu highlighted the negative effects of online gambling at two levels:
- On a personal level: Job loss, mental health issues, severe debt etc.
- At the family and societal level: family violence, use of fake identities, etc.
Under online gambling, money is earned by placing bets through the use of the Internet. Online gambling in India falls under the gray area (unclear):
- The Centre’s Public Gambling Act, 1867 does not cover games of skill. The Act also lacks clarification as to which games are Games of Skill and which are Games of Chance. Games of chance are games that do not involve skill or are considered as gambling activities.
- Betting and gambling (dyut) are mentioned in List II of the Seventh Schedule to the Constitution. It gives special power to the states to regulate them.
- Based on this, some states have adopted the Central Act with amendments or made their own special laws.
- Telangana, Kerala, Andhra Pradesh etc. have passed laws banning all online games including skill based games.
- Recently, the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology has also issued a draft of rules for the regulation of online gaming.
Source – The Hindu
