&w=3840&q=100)
No betting on chance in Karnataka govt's real-money gaming playbook
Ajinkya Kawale Aashish Aryan Mumbai/New Delhi
Listen to This Article
The Karnataka government has released a draft Bill proposing a ban on all forms of online betting, gambling, and games of chance, as the state moves to tighten oversight of the fast-growing real-money gaming (RMG) sector. A copy of the draft Bill has been reviewed by Business Standard.
According to the draft, the use of real money, tokens, virtual currency, or electronic funds for online betting or wagering is also prohibited. Games of skill shall, however, 'be exempt from this prohibition, subject to regulation and licensing', the draft Bill said.
The state government will determine, from time to time, what
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
The Hindu
4 hours ago
- The Hindu
Centre to introduce law to prohibit real money gaming firms, official says
The Union Cabinet on Tuesday (August 19, 2025) approved a Bill to effectively prohibit real money games (RMGs) online, a multi-billion dollar industry that counts fantasy sports platforms such as Dream11 and card game apps, including PokerBaazi. The Promotion and Regulation of Online Gaming Bill, 2025 is now headed to Parliament and is likely to be tabled on Wednesday. The move was not telegraphed in any public way by the government before the Cabinet approved it, with no draft Bill circulated by the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology, as has been done for a number of notifications and the Digital Personal Data Protection Act, 2023. A copy of the Bill viewed by The Hindu lays out a broad definition for 'online money gaming,' targeting a vast swath of RMGs in one fell swoop. Under this definition, 'depositing money or other stakes in expectation of winning which entails monetary and other enrichment in return of money or other stakes' comes under online money gaming, and is prohibited. Industry associations representing RMG firms did not have a comment to offer on the proposal and indicated that they would respond formally when the Bill is released upon its tabling in Parliament. The firms maintain extensive contacts with government officials and have resisted the government's previous attempts to regulate them. For instance, in the months leading up to the GST Council's decision to increase the tax applicable on RMG deposits, the industry registered its opposition on multiple fronts. At the State level, industry bodies and individual firms have successfully obtained stays on bans on their operation, such as in Karnataka. Those legal victories rested on a critical distinction between games of skill and games of chance, with only the latter being recognised by courts as gambling, which is a State subject in the Constitution. Now, that distinction may present an existential threat instead of a lifeline to the industry, as online gaming has been brought under the administrative authority of the IT Ministry, which will enforce this prohibition. Under a 2023 amendment to the IT Rules, 2021, the government sought to bring the industry under self-regulation, with oversight by an independent committee to address complaints. However, no self-regulatory bodies (SRBs) were approved by the government under that amendment, with officials questioning proposed SRBs' independence from the firms they were supposed to be overseeing. The Bill creates a carve-out for the e-sports industry, essentially allowing video game tournaments that collect entry fees to continue doing so without falling afoul of the RMG prohibition.
&w=3840&q=100)
Business Standard
4 hours ago
- Business Standard
ECMS can raise semiconductor value addition to 20%: Ajai Chowdhry
The government's recently launched Electronics Component Manufacturing Scheme (ECMS) can increase domestic value-addition requirement to 15-20 per cent from the current 3-5 per cent for semiconductor components made in the country, said Ajai Chowdhry, cofounder of HCL and chairperson of the EPIC Foundation. This value addition is likely to occur over the next three-five years as companies begin to obtain approvals and establish new plants in India, Chowdhry told Business Standard, adding that the next step should be owning intellectual property rights, especially in the design of semiconductor chips. 'There is another major area, which is still open. It is microelectronics, which covers areas like sensors, power products, and MEMS (micro-electro-mechanical systems). We have not done much about it. There are some research and development (R&D) institutes that have done very good work, but they are not creating products,' Chowdhry said. Earlier this year in April, the government notified a ₹22,919 crore ECMS to promote domestic manufacturing of electronics components, display and camera modules, non-surface mount devices, multi-layer printed circuit boards, lithium-ion cells for digital applications, among others. The scheme will also provide incentives for domestic manufacturing of other bare components such as resistors, capacitors, inductors, transformers, fuses, resistor networks, thermistors, and potentiometers, used in the production of battery packs, mobile phones, laptops, tablets, and other handheld devices. By July, the government had received proposals worth ₹7,500 crore to ₹8,000 crore from approximately 100 applications submitted by Indian and international companies. With the introduction of this scheme to promote electronics component manufacturing, the government aims to complete the trifecta of semiconductor manufacturing, semiconductor component manufacturing, and manufacturing of finished products such as mobile phones, laptops, hardware, and other information technology (IT) products. To help Indian companies collaborate with global firms, especially in the field of microelectronics, the EPIC Foundation has formed a strategic partnership with the Fraunhofer Group for Microelectronics, according to Chowdhry. There can be three ways in which India can move ahead of other countries, especially in the microelectronics space. The first would be that companies already existing in the electronics manufacturing or semiconductor space also expand their presence into the sensors market. Companies in this space also need to invest in R&D as well as development of newer products, he said. 'Second, we need to take a very deep leap into the vertical integration of every product we make. For example, 40-50 per cent of the components in a drone are not made in India today. We now need to say that we will own the whole thing, from intellectual property (IP) to the final product,' Chowdhry said. Third, the government also needs to work with the industry to identify products that can be developed within the next two-three years, as well as those that will require more extended gestation periods of up to five years and beyond, he added.
&w=3840&q=100)
Business Standard
6 hours ago
- Business Standard
India can tango with China, but must watch its step with cold realism
The Chinese minister was expansive about deepening ties, declaring that the setbacks they faced in the past few years were not in China's interests Business Standard Editorial Comment Mumbai Listen to This Article Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi's two-day visit to India, a visit coming after three years, is being viewed as signs of a thaw in Sino-Indian relations, which have been frozen since 2020 following the People's Liberation Army's incursions along the Line of Actual Control (LAC) in eastern Ladakh. But the visit, which includes talks with Foreign Minister S Jaishankar and another round of boundary negotiations with National Security Advisor Ajit Doval, also needs to be viewed against the American President's trade wars and the impending deadline for the United States (US) to impose an additional 25 per cent tariff on
