If there is one thing that excites the youth of India today, it is online betting involving gambling, sports betting, including majorly football and cricket, etc. With so many up and coming online sites, it might be difficult to get a grasp of what to expect and thus you G2G a guide to Indian gambling sites, to avoid confusion.
It is interesting to explore the history of the online betting industry in India, and understand what hurdles it faced to come to where it is today. Moreover, the future of the industry, in terms of regulations and how the Indian government characterises it, is also a theme we shall explore further.
Net Worth of the Industry:
The online gambling industry in India is worth about 5 billion$, which might seem like a small 1/12th part of the entire 60 billion$ which is the worth research puts on the entire gambling
industry, including both its online and offline forms. More importantly, the online sector is projected to grow rapidly, considering:
- The cost of Internet connections in India are now one of the cheapest in the world, with 4G booming.
- The number of Indians hooked on to an internet connection is already larger than most other nations, including Western nations.
- The size of the Indian middle class is increasing rapidly, as more and more people are pulled out of poverty.
- A growing middle class implies higher disposable income that they would like to spend on recreational activities such as online gambling.
- Unlike China, internet services aren’t heavily monitored and closed off by the government, which makes it easier for international gambling sites to attract new Indian customers.
What sort of regulations exist?
Once gambling started moving online in the West, thanks to its safety and convenience, their governments were quick to notice the shift, and impose regulations in order to enhance safety for its gamblers and also earn hefty revenue by taxing these transactions.
On the other hand, the online gambling industry in India is heavily unregulated, to the extent that governments pretend that it does not exist, or that very few people actually engage in them for it to bother the Parliament. This attitude is harmful in 2 ways:
- Any unregulated industry brings with its safety issues, since there is no legal framework or a set of regulations that industries need to adhere to, in order to maintain standards. The lack of standards means a decrease in quality, and a risk to gamblers.
- Without regulations, a 5 billion$ industry goes untaxed, thus costing the government a ton of money it could have made.
The principle behind regulating gambling is that when demand for a resource that is ethically questionable exists, it is better for society and for the government to legalise it while simultaneously regulating and taxing it. Thus, despite lying in an otherwise ethical grey area, banning may not prove as useful, as it will just drive the business underground and create a black market, as regulating and taxing the industry.
Problems faced while imposing regulations:
- The definition of gambling, according to Indian laws, is obscure and more open to be abused.
- Online casino games involve both chance and skill that can potentially occur simultaneously.
- Indian laws however, distinguish games of chance and skill, as 2 separate entities, and under the penal codes, these 2 always exist in isolation of one another.
- While most states have legalised games of skill and games of chance, which is a primary concern for gambling, is still unregulated.
- To add to the confusion, gambling laws aren’t centrally regulated, but are placed under the mandate of respective states. Thus, laws can vary widely across states, which makes it difficult for online casinos to tend to the entire nation simultaneously. What is legal in one state can get you arrested in a different state and so on.
- The definitions of chance and skill tend to be skewed as well. Games involving both can include betting, but only one of them is legal. Horse racing which involves bookmaking, is a game of skill, but includes betting and is perfectly legal. Betting on games of cards, on the other hand, isn’t.
Future of the industry:
As a general rule, government regulations of informal sectors tend to convert markets into industries. Not only does it ensure better quality of goods and services, it also ensures that the industry earns the government tax revenue. Gambling, as we can see, can potentially fit into this paradigm, if regulated.
Sikkim is a state that has already started issuing gambling licenses, and also has a state-owned lottery, in an attempt to establish a well-regulated gambling industry. It is time that other states and India at large follow the example of Sikkim, and start taking gambling
seriously.
