Regulation of India’s online gaming industry is now an emerging topic as many of the country’s top venture capitalists are stakeholders of the industry. In April 2021, Tracxn reported that a 6-year high of Rs 9.7 billion, or $131 million, has been infused as financial backing by India’s leading venture capitalists since 2020.
According to Tracxn, which tracks the financial data and investments of India’s private companies, including start-ups, the number of firms provided with financial backing also increased by as many as 11 companies. This has brought the total of online gaming companies in the country to 19.
The entities that received capital infusion are online gaming platforms offering rummy games, poker and fantasy sports. Millions of Indian citizens access the gaming sites either from the web or through smartphone mobile applications.
Are Games of Skill Legal in India?
Online gaming ordinarily involves staking of real money wagers, which under federal Indian Laws are deemed as legal because monies are staked on games of skills.
However, as the turn if events has it, several states have enacted statutes that do not recognize the legality of games of skills when played online. Some others have completely excluded the games of skills exclusion in order to completely ban betting activities in their jurisdictions.
Such developments can affect the ability of online gaming companies to provide stakeholders the expected return on investments. Many are in fact calling the state statutes as unconstitutional as they are tantamount to prohibiting business organizations to engage in a legal activity.
As a result, rummy gaming websites are in fact constrained to reject players from restricting states, as can be viewed in a sample notification published via this website.
How Government Regulations Can Help Solve the Issues
The CEO and co-founder of Mobile Premier League (MPL)Sai Srinivas, believes that regulatory clarity is one way of attracting investors since it clears away any ambiguity that can affect the viability of the sector.
Last year, some investors also infused capital investments on Indian companies that delve in the development of rummy game variants. Mainly because online gaming platforms are seeing a rapid increase in the number of online players.
Millions are now enjoying the different variants of traditional Indian Rummy in numerous, technologically advanced gaming platforms.
Factors Contributing to the Success of Online Gaming as a Business Venture
Based on a recent business report published by Deloitte, the number of online and mobile gamers in India jumped to 326 million in 2020, coming from a previous figure of 269 million recorded in 2018. The Deloitte report also gave an estimate that the market size of India’s online gaming industry will be worth $2.8 billion by 2022.
Actually, online gaming in the country has been on an upward trend in the past three years. The 2020 lockdown had in fact accelerated the growth of the industry particularly in e-sports and games of skills platforms for rummy and poker.
The other contributing factors to the industry’s growth are the improved Internet penetration, along with the delivery of affordable and fast data. Another is the availability of digital payment services not only within metropolitan areas, but also beyond urban geographical locations. All these, plus the timely arrival of affordable smartphones are the key contributing factors that attracted top venture capitalists to take part in India’s online gaming industry,