Gaming companies have appealed to India’s Supreme Court that fantasy sports should be legal as games of skill, not games of chance.
The Supreme Court is currently examining appeals against state-level bans on online gambling and fantasy sports.
At the center of the legal battle are three state laws: the Tamil Nadu Gaming and Police Laws (Amendment) Act, 2021; the Tamil Nadu Prohibition of Online Gambling and Regulation of Online Games Act, 2022; and the Karnataka Police (Amendment) Act, 2021.
These acts criminalize online games such as rummy, poker, and fantasy sports, despite courts previously ruling them as games of skill, which are legal under India’s gambling laws.
Fantasy Sports Require Skillful Selections, Argue Advocates
Representing the Federation of Indian Fantasy Sports (FIFS), Senior Advocate Mukul Rohatgi focused on the knowledge players need to make their selections.
“Participants act as virtual team selectors, using statistical knowledge, match conditions, and player performance data. The outcome does not depend on the result of the real-world game, but on the accumulated fantasy points earned through real-life player statistics,” he explained.
With over 400 million digital gamers in India and a thriving industry around real-money gaming and fantasy sports, the Supreme Court’s verdict is likely to have a far-reaching impact.
The arguments follow a similar pattern to those seen in the US, with California’s Attorney General (AG) recently declaring fantasy sports illegal.
After AG Rob Bonta released his opinion, fantasy sports operators such as PrizePicks and Underdog have withdrawn their against-the-house pick’em products, replacing them with peer-to-peer prediction games.
Indian Lawyers Argue Courts Have Set Precedent
In addition to the claim that fantasy sports involve a high level of skill to make successful predictions, lawyers argued that previous court rulings support their legality.
Arvind Datar, appearing on behalf of Head Digital Works Pvt Ltd, noted that the laws that ban skill games do not reflect the country’s constitution.
“These provisions were not only unconstitutional but also impermissibly reversed binding precedent from the Supreme Court,” he stated.
Previous high-court rulings in Madras and Karnataka had ruled in favor of allowing fantasy sports, as well as games of skill such as poker and rummy to continue at online casinos.
Datar also noted the contradiction of the laws, which allow offline poker and rummy but ban the same games if played through the internet.
The ruling in India may not affect the legality of fantasy sports in California, but it serves as further evidence of the ongoing debate between lawmakers and operators over the gray area of fantasy sports, which toes the line between gaming and gambling.
Commenting on the ongoing debate in California, Victor Rocha, Conference Chairman for the Indian Gaming Association, said, “This is a moment. The calm before the storm. Everyone is reassessing.”
