Is gambling legal in India? What the law bans, what it still allows, and where betting stands

Two different laws answer this question, and most of what you will read online knows about only one of them. Anything played online for money is governed by a central statute that took effect on 1 May 2026 and covers the entire country. Anything you walk into, a casino or a racecourse or a lottery counter, is still governed by the state you happen to be standing in, under a framework that dates to 1867.

That split matters, because the question people usually ask is whether an app or a website is legal to use, and that one is answered by the newer law while almost every guide still answers it with the older test.

Is gambling legal in India? The position at a glance

Activity	Position in India today	Governing law
Offering an online game played for money, skill or chance	Prohibited	Online Gaming Act 2025, s.5
Advertising an online money game	Prohibited	Online Gaming Act 2025, s.6
Banking or processing payments for one	Prohibited	Online Gaming Act 2025, s.7
E-sports with entry fees and prize money	Permitted, and actively promoted	Online Gaming Act 2025, ss.2(c) and 3
Online social games with no stake	Permitted, and actively promoted	Online Gaming Act 2025, ss.2(i) and 4
Betting on horse races	Legal where the state permits it	State gaming Acts, after the Supreme Court in 1996
State lotteries	Legal in the 13 states that run one	Lotteries (Regulation) Act, 1998
Casinos	Licensed in Goa, Daman and Sikkim only	State Acts, e.g. the Goa, Daman and Diu Public Gambling Act, 1976
Other physical gambling	Prohibited in most states	Public Gambling Act, 1867, and state Acts

What the 2025 Act actually prohibits

The Promotion and Regulation of Online Gaming Act, 2025 is Act No. 32 of 2025. Parliament passed it on 21 August 2025, it received presidential assent the next day, and the government brought it into force on 1 May 2026 along with the rules written to operate it.

Three sections do the work, and they are short enough to summarise precisely. Section 5 says no person shall offer, aid, abet, induce or otherwise engage in the offering of an online money game or an online money gaming service. Section 6 bans any advertisement that directly or indirectly promotes one or induces anyone to play. Section 7 stops banks, financial institutions and anyone else from facilitating a payment towards an online money gaming service.

Read those together and the design becomes clear. The Act goes after supply. It is aimed at the people who run these platforms, the people who advertise them and the people who move the money, and its offences are framed around offering, promoting and financing rather than around playing.

Offence	Section	Maximum penalty	On a repeat conviction
Offering an online money game or the service	5	3 years and/or 1 crore rupees	Not less than 3 years, up to 5; 1 to 2 crore
Advertising one	6	2 years and/or 50 lakh rupees	Not less than 2 years, up to 3; 50 lakh to 1 crore
Facilitating the payments	7	3 years and/or 1 crore rupees	Not less than 3 years, up to 5; 1 to 2 crore

Offences under sections 5 and 7 are cognizable and non-bailable. Section 16 lets an authorised officer enter and search any place, physical or digital, and arrest without a warrant. Section 14 allows a money gaming service to be blocked from public access. And section 18 gives the Act overriding effect over any other law to the extent of an inconsistency, which is what makes it a national answer rather than one more state variation.

One provision is easy to miss and explains why an offshore site is not a way around any of it. Section 1(2) says the Act extends to the whole of India and applies to an online money gaming service offered within Indian territory or operated from outside it.

The skill-versus-chance test is gone, for online money games

For decades the whole of Indian gambling law turned on one question: did the game reward skill or luck? Games of chance were gambling and were banned. Games of skill were a legitimate business, protected as a trade, and the courts extended that protection to rummy, to horse racing and eventually to fantasy sports. Entire companies were built on the reasoning.

Section 2(g) ends the argument for anything played online for money. An “online money game” is defined as a game played by paying fees, depositing money or other stakes in expectation of winning money, irrespective of whether such game is based on skill, chance, or both. E-sports are carved out by name. Nothing else is.

Section 2(j) then defines “other stakes” broadly enough to close the obvious workaround. It covers anything recognised as equivalent or convertible to money, including credits, coins, tokens or objects, real or virtual, bought with money directly or indirectly. A platform cannot escape the definition by denominating its buy-ins in coins.

What survives on the permitted side is narrow and precisely drawn. An e-sport under section 2(c) has to be part of a multi-sports event, registered under the National Sports Governance Act, 2025, and decided solely by skill, and it must not involve the placing of bets, wagers or stakes by anyone at all, participant or not. Fees are allowed only to enter the competition or cover administrative costs, and prize money has to be performance-based. An online social game under section 2(i) simply cannot involve a stake, though it may charge a subscription. We have written separately on what this left of Dream11, and on the Act’s provisions in more detail.

What is still legal, offline

None of the above touches gambling you walk into. Betting and gambling sit in the State List of the Constitution, the Public Gambling Act, 1867 remains the baseline, and each state has legislated on top of it.

Casinos are licensed in three jurisdictions and nowhere else: Goa, Daman and Sikkim. Goa’s operate under the Goa, Daman and Diu Public Gambling Act, 1976, which confines them to five-star hotels and to vessels offshore, most of them moored on the Mandovi. Sikkim licenses its own under state law and bars people domiciled in Sikkim from entering them, which tells you the policy is aimed at visitors rather than residents.

Betting on horse races is the other long-standing exception, and it exists because of the old test rather than in spite of it. On 12 January 1996, in Dr K.R. Lakshmanan v State of Tamil Nadu, the Supreme Court held that horse racing is a game of skill and that wagering on it is not “gaming” under the Madras statutes. Racing states have carved it out ever since. The oddity is worth sitting with: the reasoning the 2025 Act discarded for online play is still the reason you can back a horse at a racecourse.

Lotteries are the third carve-out, run by the states themselves under the Lotteries (Regulation) Act, 1998. Thirteen states operate one. Others, Tamil Nadu among them, have banned lotteries outright.

Is any of this about to change?

The Act is being challenged. Petitions filed in three High Courts were transferred to the Supreme Court in September 2025 under Article 139A, and on 5 August 2026 a bench headed by Chief Justice Surya Kant agreed to give the batch a final hearing and told the parties to complete their pleadings. The constitutional grounds include Article 19(1)(g), Article 14 and the states’ own legislative competence over betting.

Two things follow from that. Nothing has been struck down or stayed, so the Act is fully in force while the case runs. And a final hearing is not a judgment, so anyone telling you the ban is about to be reversed is guessing.

How India compares

India’s answer is strict, but the shape of its law is ordinary. Most countries that regulate this write their rules for operators rather than for players.

Britain has licensed betting shops since May 1961, under the Betting and Gaming Act 1960, and the Gambling Act 2005 built the modern licensing system and the Gambling Commission around them. The United States had a federal ban until 2018, when the Supreme Court struck down the Professional and Amateur Sports Protection Act in Murphy v NCAA, holding that Congress could not commandeer the states; more than 40 states and the District of Columbia have legalised some form of sports wagering since. Australia licenses online sports betting under the Interactive Gambling Act 2001 but prohibits online casino games, closed its in-play betting loophole in 2017, and restricts advertising around live sport.

The Australian regulator makes the shared design explicit: its Act targets the providers of interactive gambling, not their customers. India’s 2025 Act is built the same way and reaches the opposite conclusion about what to allow.

If you are trying to understand the vocabulary rather than the law, we have explainers on how back and lay betting works and on the position on cricket betting specifically.

This article is general information about the law on gambling and betting in India, not betting advice or a recommendation to gamble. Online real-money gaming is restricted or prohibited in some places, including in India under the Promotion and Regulation of Online Gaming Act, 2025. Always check the rules that apply where you are. 18+.

Featured photo: PATRICK KOVARIK / AFP