India’s Online Gaming Law 2025: End of the road for gambling in India’s digital games?

India has enacted the Online Gaming Law 2025, banning Online Money Games while recognising esports as a legitimate sport. The move forces major firms like Dream11 and MPL to halt money-based operations, reshaping the digital gaming industry’s future in India.

With President Droupadi Murmu’s approval of “The Promotion and Regulation of Online Gaming Bill, 2025” on Friday, August 22, the country witnessed one of the fastest enactments of a bill into law. First introduced in the Lok Sabha on Wednesday, August 20, 2025, as Bill No. 110 of 2025 and passed a day later in the Rajya Sabha, the new Act, spread across six chapters and 14 pages, overhauls India’s legal framework for digital games, moving beyond the 2022 draft online gaming bill.

New classification and a ban on Online Money Games

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The Act classifies digital games into three categories: Esports, Online Social Games, and Online Money Games. It prohibits Online Money Games—defined as games involving real money stakes and offering challenges of skill, chance, or both—highlighting their potential to cause addiction, financial ruin, and money laundering.

The law also cites threats to national security, the need to promote healthy alternatives, and the importance of closing loopholes that previously allowed such games to function. For the broader gaming industry, the Act provides relief as developers of games without gambling mechanics are now classified separately and exempted from the earlier “sin tax” level of GST.

An immediately transforming landscape

For companies engaged in gambling-linked games, the law poses significant challenges. Popular firms such as Dream11, WinZO, Probo, MPL, and Nazara Tech’s Moonshine Technologies (PokerBaazi) have been forced to cease real-world money transactions.

The impact was immediate. Dream11 stepped down as the sponsor of the Indian cricket team on Sunday, leaving the BCCI in search of a new sponsor for the upcoming Asia Cup.

Esports and other measures

The Act recognises esports as a legitimate competitive sport and calls for guidelines and standards for tournaments, training academies, and research centres to strengthen the ecosystem. It also empowers the Central government to certify and register social games that are safe and age-appropriate while promoting platforms that distribute such content.

While esports and Online Social Games are expected to gain momentum, whether game makers will be incentivised to develop such games in India rather than relocating their Online Money Games to international markets remains a question only time will answer.