Whether online betting is a crime?

663 votes

HI

Online betting law is very vague in India. There are some states in which it is allowed and some states where it is banned. If you are just a user who wants to do online betting then certain things which you need to be careful of and if you want to open an online betting website then certain laws which you need to know. We have provided opinion to user as well as service providers on this. Let us know if you want to consult.

Advocate Kanishk Agarwal LawRato

798 votes

Betting or gambling is illegal in most of India. But there is no law that makes online betting an illegal activity. Offshore betting companies are apparently using this ‘loophole’ to lure Indians to bet on pretty much everything. The Indian Premier League (IPL) tops their lists now and some websites have even hooked up with offshore betting agencies, thereby allowing Indians to place online bets.
One of the advisory websites, indiabet.com, claims they don't take bets but help get in touch with international online bookmakers.

The question of whether it is legal to bet from India using an international bookmaker is not clear in law. While bookmakers in India are illegal, there is no specific law in India which bans an individual customer from placing an online bet with a bookmaker based outside India.

According to the Public Gambling Act (1867), all kinds of gambling in India are illegal but unlike in the US where there is the American Internet Gambling Prohibition Act, no specific laws exist in the Indian system that bar online gambling.

It also becomes difficult to catch internet gambling offenders if the websites are hosted by servers located in countries where betting is legal and enforcing the act becomes difficult if the servers are located offshore.

On 4 March 2009, the Government of Sikkim (Finance, Revenue and Expenditure Department) issued a memorandum known as Sikkim Online Gaming (Regulation) Rules, 2009. This outlines the rules and regulations for online gambling licensing within that state.

However, if an Indian resident decides to place bets on a website hosted outside the country, it would be difficult to hold him guilty of online gambling if the laws of the country where the website is hosted, permits online gambling.

so to say briefly that in india generally betting is prohibited but there is no explicit mentioning about online betting so legally it might be illegal but still you can bet in online in India. The courts are also not made clear relating to this branch of law.

Advocate S. Sethu Mahendran LawRato

741 votes

Its not different from online Gambling & prosecuted under the Public Gambling Act which explicitly states “nothing in this Act shall apply to games of mere skill wherever played” which means, in absence of other laws against them, wagering on games of skill is legal. While the Act itself doesn’t define gambling, in 1996 the Supreme Court of India defined games of mere skill as follows:

The competitions where success depends on substantial degree of skill are not “gambling” and despite there being an element of chance if a game is preponderantly a game of skill it would nevertheless be a game of “mere skill”

An early ruling came in 1957 where Horse Race Betting was determined a skill:

“The expression “gaming” in the two Acts has to be interpreted in the light of the law laid-down by this Court in the two1957 cases, wherein it has been authoritatively held that a competition which substantially depends on skill is not gambling. Gaming is the act or practice of gambling on a game of chance. It is staking on chance where chance is the controlling factor. “Gaming” in the two Acts would, therefore, mean wagering or betting on games of chance. It would not include games of skill like horse racing”.

Advocate Sanjay Dubey LawRato

790 votes

There has been debate on this issue and the recent report has been made to legalise it. However, the betting is not permitted in law and there have been various hue and cry in the past. Even some players had to loose the game for ever.

Advocate Ganesh Singh LawRato