The Promotion and Regulation of Online Gaming Act, 2025 received the President’s assent on 22 August 2025. It was brought into force by gazette notification with effect from 1 May 2026, and the Promotion and Regulation of Online Gaming Rules, 2026 were notified on 22 April 2026 to take effect on the same date.
This page sets out what the Act’s operative sections say and what penalties attach to them. It draws no conclusion for any reader about their own position, and it is not legal advice. Anyone who needs to know how the Act applies to them should take it to a qualified Indian lawyer.
What does the Act mean by an online money game?
The definition is the pivot of the whole statute. An online money game is an online game played by a user by paying a fee, or depositing money or other stakes, with the expectation of winning monetary or other enrichment — and the definition applies irrespective of whether the game is based on skill or on chance.
That last clause is the departure from what came before. A long line of Indian judicial reasoning had turned on the distinction between games of skill and games of chance; the Act’s definition removes the distinction from this question entirely.
The Act separately defines online social games, played without monetary stakes, and e-sports, competitive games recognised under the National Sports Governance Act, 2025 and involving no betting or wagering. Those two categories sit outside the prohibition.
What does section 5 prohibit?
Section 5 is the central prohibition. It bars any person from offering, aiding, abetting, inducing or otherwise indulging or engaging in the offering of an online money game or an online money gaming service.
The verbs matter as much as the noun. “Offering” is narrow; “aiding, abetting, inducing” is not, and commentary on the Act has read the chain as reaching distributors, intermediaries, payment processors, advertisers and individuals who promote such services. How far that language extends in any particular case is a question for the courts, not for a comparison site.
A breach of section 5 carries imprisonment of up to three years, a fine of up to one crore rupees, or both.
What does section 6 prohibit?
Section 6 addresses advertising. It bars any person from making, or being involved in making, any advertisement in any media, including digital media, that directly or indirectly promotes or induces any person to play an online money game.
Two words carry the reach of that section: “indirectly”, and “any media”. A breach carries imprisonment of up to two years, a fine of up to fifty lakh rupees, or both.
What does section 7 prohibit?
Section 7 goes at the money. It bars banks, financial institutions and any other person from facilitating a financial transaction relating to an online money gaming service.
This is the section that reaches the payment layer rather than the gaming layer. A breach carries imprisonment of up to three years, a fine of up to one crore rupees, or both — the same scale as section 5.
How are these offences classified and enforced?
- Offences under sections 5 and 7 are cognizable and non-bailable, which changes what an investigating officer may do without prior sanction and what follows an arrest.
- Authorised officers hold search and seizure powers that may be exercised without a warrant where there is reasonable suspicion.
- The Central Government may use its website-blocking powers under the Information Technology Act, 2000 against services falling within the prohibition.
- Failure to comply with a direction issued by the Central Government or by the Authority attracts a penalty of up to ten lakh rupees.
- Repeat contraventions carry enhanced consequences, including higher fines.
The gazette notification that brought the Act into force on 1 May 2026 also constituted the Online Gaming Authority of India and designated the officers empowered to investigate offences under it.
What does the Authority do?
The Authority sits under the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology. Its functions include determining whether a particular online game falls within the definition of an online money game, recognising e-sports and registering online social games where the government notifies a requirement, and issuing directions that bind those it addresses.
So the classification question — whether a given product is inside or outside the prohibition — is answered administratively rather than only in litigation.
What does an offshore licence have to do with any of this?
Nothing. A Curaçao certificate or an Anjouan register entry is a permission granted by a foreign body under foreign law to a foreign company. It has no standing under the Act and answers no question the Act asks.
Six operators in our library go further and name India in their own restricted-country clause; that is a private contract term, described on our page about operators that restrict India in their terms. It is the operator’s rule about accounts, not a reading of Indian law.
Which other statutes sit alongside the Act?
The Act is not the whole of the field. State legislatures have their own gaming statutes, several of which predate the central Act and some of which are stricter in specific respects. The Information Technology Act, 2000 supplies the blocking machinery. Tax provisions live in the Income-tax Act and in the GST framework and operate on their own terms, independently of any question of permission.
A tax provision addressed to an activity is not a statement that the activity is permitted, and the two should never be read as answering each other.
What this page does not tell you
It does not tell you whether you may play, sign up, deposit or withdraw. It does not interpret “aids, abets, induces” for your situation. It does not tell you what a court would decide about any particular product, platform or transaction. It does not summarise the state statute that applies where you live, and it does not address any consequence outside the Act itself.
Everything above is a description of published text and of the notifications that brought it into force, with the dates on which each was read. Treat it as a starting point for a conversation with a lawyer, and not as a substitute for one.
The mechanics of how crypto payments work at these platforms, separately from the question of permission, are described in our guide to Bitcoin casinos in India.
How the operators’ own paperwork is structured — and how little of it is checkable — is covered on our pages about checking a licence number and what crypto casinos do not publish.