All India Gaming Federation Moves Madras High Court Against TN Govt Ordinance On Online Gaming

The All India Gaming Federation has moved Madras High Court challenging Tamil Nadu government's recent ordinance banning online gambling in the State. The ordinance promulgated by the State last month also regulates other online games.

According to the ordinance, online gambling and online games are addictive and increase the threat to public order. The ordinance also states that issues of online gaming and gambling cannot be dealt with by the old binary of game of chance versus game of skill and "a new conceptual framework" is needed to understand the different versions of games.

Today, the bench of Acting Chief Justice T Raja and Justice Bharatha Chakravarthy was informed that other petitions filed by different parties on the same issue are yet to be numbered. The bench then adjourned the matter to November 16 to hear all the petitioners together.

The Federation Secretary, through his affidavit, submitted that the group has been relentlessly working to develop a self regulatory mechanism to make sure that online gaming is carried out in an ethical and responsible manner.

To achieve this objective, the federation has even developed a "Charter on Online Games of Skill" to regulate all the games of skill played online, he said in the affidavit.

This Charter ensures certain standards and mandates that no games are offered to children below the age of 18 years.

The petitioners before the court contend that games like poker and rummy would not come under the ambit of "betting and gambling" as they are games which require skills. It has been further submitted that a majority of states in India have kept the games outside the ambit of "betting and gambling".

Arguing that such an ordinance would affect the business of members of the petitioner federation, the group has prayed for a stay on the operation of the Ordinance during the pendency of the case.

Case Title: All India Gaming Federation v State of Tamil Nadu and another