Category Archives: Gambling

The Indianapolis Colts have finalized a deal with new sports betting partner WynnBet for a club space at Lucas Oil Stadium.

As part of the deal, the West Club at the stadium will be renamed the WynnBet Cluba 21-and-up sports bar on the club level. It will also feature a VIP area. Financial terms for the deal were not disclosed.

The multiyear deal comes a day after the franchise announced a partnership with Caesars for a lounge area focused on sports gambling in the former Blue Room on the main concourse.

As a sportsbook partner, WynnBet will have a lounge at Touchdown Town, the Colts pregame tailgate area, as well as a title sponsorship of the teams podcast. It will additionally get airtime on Colts game-day programming.

Former Colts standout linebacker Robert Mathis will also be a brand ambassador for WynnBet.

This partnership with WynnBet will help the Colts expand offerings, activities and events for our fans and customers and provide multiple new options for them to engage with the team, said Roger VanDerSnick, chief sales and marketing officer for the Colts. We also look forward to WynnBets presence in our television shows, podcasts and other digital and social platforms, which will allow us to touch even more fans, on gameday or otherwise.

Pro sports teams are rushing to embrace the fast-growing sports gambling market now that betting is legal in more than a dozen states.The opening weekend of the 2021 NFL season saw a record-breaking number online bets.

At least 58 million transactions took place across 18 states and Washington, D.C., from Thursday through Sunday, according to GeoComply Solutions, a company that verifies that most of the U.S. sports betting industry uses to verify that its customers are where they say they are. That represents a 126% increase from the same period of the 2020 NFL season

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Colts ink another deal for stadium space with sports gambling partner - Indianapolis Business Journal

Legislation designed to amend gambling laws in Northern Ireland for the first time in more than three decades has been introduced in the provinces legislature.

The Betting, Gaming, Lotteries and Amusements (Amendment) Bill passed the first of seven stages towards becoming law when it was presented by Deirdre Hargey, the Minister for Communities, this week. To become law, the bill must be passed before the expiration of the Assemblys current mandate in 2022.

The legislation, announced by Hargey earlier this year, would create new offences in relation to allowing children to play gaming machines, create powers to impose a statutory levy on gambling operators and establish a mandatory code of practice for those holding gambling licences.

The bill would update the Betting, Gaming, Lotteries and Amusements (Northern Ireland) Order 1985, the provinces most recent gambling legislation.

Hargey has described the bill as the first phase in a two-phased approach to reforming gambling law, with much larger legislation to deal with remaining issues such as online gambling regulation to be taken forward during a future mandate.

In an explanatory and financial memorandum published alongside the amendment bill, the Department for Communities said: The overarching objective of the bill is to address a number of specific anomalies with regard to the current regulation of land-based betting, gaming, lottery and amusement activities. It is also designed to strengthen existing regulatory protections for operators and consumers as well as young people and those who may be vulnerable to gambling harm.

Members of the Legislative Assembly (MLAs) will debate and vote on the general principles of the bill in the coming days before it most likely progresses to the committee stage. The bill is then brought back to the Assembly for MLAs to debate and vote on the detail and any proposed amendments. If passed, it must then be cleared by the Secretary of State, who presents it for final Royal Assent.

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Northern Ireland gambling amendment bill introduced | Legal & compliance - iGaming Business

To play a casino game in many countries of the world, you can simply search for best online casino and click on one of the results. You can complete the registration process in a maximum of 5 minutes and get your first win in 10 minutes, it is that easy. Unfortunately, in some countries of the world, this is not that easy and can turn into a challenge in itself. Believe it or not, the United States of America is one of those countries. In a country that hosts Las Vegas, the gambling capital of the world, legal gambling is a real problem and something that is still not possible in most states. So, why does this happen? Is it illegal to gamble in the USA or are there other reasons? Below, we answer these questions and take a look at the strange situation of legal gambling in the US.

Most people (even most Americans) think gambling is prohibited in the US except for a few states. However, this is not the case: there is no federal law in the country prohibiting gambling. But there is also no law that says gambling is legal, so at the federal level, this issue remains in a gray area.

So why is gambling considered illegal in the US? This is due to a strange overlap of many local and federal laws. If we explain it in a list:

Now, do you understand why we said: not illegal but also not legal? There is no law in the US that says gambling is prohibited at the federal level, but many regulations make it almost impossible to do so in practice.

The Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act is still in effect, so we have no good news for online casinos. Although some states, such as New Jersey, allow this to a limited extent (companies with a land-based casino in the state may open a website with a limited number of games), we may have to wait for years to see legal online casinos at the federal level. The situation for legal sports betting is much better: after The Supreme Courts decision in 2018, many states legalized sports betting. You can see a complete list of them in the table below.

This table shows the current situation (2021), and we predict that many other states will legalize sports betting before the year ends. After all, legalized gambling is both a source of income for states and helps the fight against organized crime.

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The Curious Case of Legal Gambling in the United States - Californianewstimes.com

Streaming services such as Twitch and YouTube Live are now a significant part of popular entertainment. These sites host millions of live streamers and tens of millions of daily viewers.

Streamers broadcast their lives and activities often digital gaming to audiences who interact and chat with them in real-time. Twitch, the dominant streaming platform, also currently houses around 150 channels offering the live broadcasting of real-money slot machine gambling the most popular of these regularly receive over 100,000 views.

Slot streaming channels have recently made headlines. Well-known streamers have been racking up views and wagering and winning large sums of money. Criticism from other streamers has flowed in, such as Imane Pokimane Anys calling the hosted slots sites sketchy and ethically ambiguous. And Felix xQc Lengyel eventually ended his slots streaming, concerned he was addicted to gambling and apologized for exposing his audience which included underage youth to gambling.

Research on Twitch is growing, particularly in relation to gambling streams. One of the first studies in this area found that approximately four per cent of adults in the United Kingdom watch gambling streams like the Twitch slot channels, compared to approximately 14 per cent who actually play such slot machine games online. This study also found a correlation between watching gambling online and self-reported problem gambling, but cause and effect remain unclear.

Live gambling streams inspire some important ethical and regulatory discussions. The media outcry over these streams often points to the risk of exposing youth to gambling. Age-gating, or age verification, on Twitch or elsewhere is minimal. A streamer can indicate that the stream is intended for mature audiences, but this does not restrict any viewer from clicking Start Watching.

The decades-long norm of disregarding age-gating in digital games demonstrates how easy these sorts of barriers are to evade. This suggests new legal concerns for live streaming platforms that allow gambling to be broadcast.

A separate set of issues exist when it comes to transparency. Streamers may be committing malicious deception, or even outright fraud, if they fail to disclose affiliations with the gambling sites at which they play.

For example, some sponsorship contracts may entitle the streamer to regular balance top ups. This involves a gambling site providing a free (or in casino terms, comped) account balance refresh. This practice raises questions regarding advertising standards, as well as the safety and mental health of the streamers themselves like xQcs concerns over a possible gambling addiction.

In addition, the underlying gambling activity itself could be illegal depending on the license status of the gambling website and geolocation of the streamer. Yet determining what is permitted is not always a simple task.

If the gambling website is hosted in one location, the streamer in another and the viewers are located around the world, which local, national and international laws apply? Compound this with a variety of currencies like fiat, fungible crypto, non-fungible crypto, virtual currencies without cash value not all of which are legal tender for gambling in all jurisdictions, and the complexity of the situation becomes clear.

Twitchs community guidelines are nevertheless clear that streamers must follow relevant laws, that illegal content is prohibited and that the platform will take action via suspensions or bans following investigations of reported illegal gambling.

In mid-August, Twitch announced a creator update prohibiting sharing links and referral codes to slots, roulette or dice games. The goal was preventing harm and scams created by questionable gambling services that sponsor content on Twitch. As a blanket prohibition, it does not discern between licensed and unlicensed gambling sites and does not include poker, another commonly streamed game.

With this range of issues, why do people watch live gambling streams? For people experiencing problems with their gambling, they might turn to casino streams to cope with cravings. On a recent podcast episode of All Bets Are Off, a gambling addiction recovery podcast, two men discussed using live gambling streams as part of their recovery.

Alternatively, interest in these streams may be unrelated to gambling cravings and focus on entertainment, excitement or other gambling motivations like financial interests.

Our latest ongoing research explores viewing motives using data from Twitch live chat, alongside an analysis of the characteristics of Twitchs major slots stream videos.

Technological innovation has always developed more quickly than government rules that govern any given space. As a result, activities like slots streaming fall into an area of uncertainty. Ultimately, it seems that consideration of consumer protection in this space cannot solely be a government-regulated effort.

Given the complexity of jurisdictional rule and the potential harm that may arise from gambling, all stakeholders streamers, platforms, game developers, consumers themselves, parents and more have a role to play in ensuring that games and their many means of play and broadcast are, as Twitch declares as its goal, a friendly, positive experience for our global community.

Broadcasting real-money gambling inevitably complicates the ethical practices of such a platform. Gambling live streams appear likely to become an increasingly important part of contemporary gambling practices in the years to come, and merit the closest study.

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Gambling live streams on Twitch: What are they and why do they matter? - The Conversation CA

BCSO said uniformed security was working at each location, and are among the seven total people arrested.

SAN ANTONIO Bexar County Sheriff Javier Salazar provided details on two illegal gambling operations busts.

The news conference took place around 5 p.m. Wednesday in the 6400 block of Montgomery Drive.

Sheriff Salazar said BCSO received a tip about an illegal gambling operation.

Sheriff Salazar said undercover investigators began their investigation, and eventually got enough information to obtain a warrant. In their investigation, they found two locations that were operating illegally, so two different SWAT teams were able to make entry into each building.

The locations were on Montgomery Drive and Lakeview Drive, each on the city's northeast side.

There were 40 machines found at the Montgomery location and 25 machines were found at the Lakeview location. Sheriff Salazar said they will force entry into each machine if needed. The Fire Marshal will also come and begin looking for code violations.

BCSO said uniformed security was working at each location, and are among the seven total people arrested. Those guards are licensed and worked with a security company and will "probably be going to jail tonight," said Sheriff Salazar.

He said both were forced entries into the building, but "went smoothly." Four people were detained on Montgomery. Three people were detained on Lakeview.

Each face Class A misdemeanors and cash was reportedly involved. BCSO said they will know the exact amount by Wednesday night or Thursday morning.

When asked the harm these operations cause for the community, Sheriff Salazar said these people target the elderly and those on fixed incomes.

Sheriff Salazar said there were customers inside at the time of entry, and those customers were given citations.

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Seven people arrested after BCSO busts illegal gambling operations on northeast side - KENS5.com

By Travis Fain, WRAL statehouse reporter

Raleigh, N.C. A bill to legalize sports gambling in North Carolina inched forward again Wednesday, but it faces a winding road and a tight timetable to become law this year.

Senate Bill 688 has already cleared a major hurdle, passing the state Senate last month. Now, it's in the House, which on Wednesday referred the bill to four committees. What comes next is up to those committee chairs.

"I don't know if it'll pass or not, but we referred it out today, and if those committee chairs want to hear it, they can," House Rules Chairman Destin Hall, a key leader in the House Republican majority, said Wednesday. "I expect they probably will, but, in terms of timeline, I don't know."

The bill would start in House Commerce, then head to House Judiciary 1, then to House Finance and then to House Rules, which decides when the bill actually goes to the House floor for a full chamber vote. That process can move quickly or not, but time is running out on this long legislative session.

House Commerce Chairman John Sauls, R-Lee, said Wednesday that he expects his committee will hear the bill, but he didn't have anything scheduled yet, and the House is off until next week.

Hall, R-Caldwell, said the bill hasn't been before the House Republican caucus yet for detailed discussion, usually a key step if legislation is going to move forward in the GOP-controlled chamber.

House Speaker Tim Moore said he hopes the two major items keeping the legislature in session right now, the state budget and a required redistricting plan, will be settled by the end of October. He referred questions on the gambling bill, though, to Hall.

Moore, R-Cleveland, an attorney by trade, represents Skyboat Gaming, which is part of a casino project in his district, and he said he has recused himself on the sports gambling bill.

If the House doesn't move on the bill this year, it can do so next year.

"It may just be that we run out of time in the long session to get it done," Hall said.

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NC gambling bill takes another step, but time is running short this year - WRAL.com

TORONTO -- The Canadian Centre on Substance Use and Addiction (CCSA) has released new guidelines intended to help Canadians reduce the harm caused by gambling.

The guidelines were formed after five years of research into how those who gamble can lower risks, as well as understand when their gambling is starting to become more risky.

The CCSA recommends that Canadians gamble no more than one per cent of their household income before tax, gamble no more than four days per month, and keep regular gambling to two or fewer types of games.

Its essential to follow all three guidelines in order to gamble with low risk, the agency said.

Gambling is a legal activity that can pose risks to some people in Canada, including financial hardships, relationship conflicts, emotional or psychological distress, and health issues, Matthew Young, co-chair of the Lower-Risk Gambling Guidelines Scientific Working Group, explained in a press release.

These guidelines will help people in Canada who gamble do so in a way that lowers their risk of experiencing these problems.

The guidelines seem simple, but there is a lot behind them.

Researchers analyzed data from more than 60,000 people who gamble across eight different countries, and looked at feedback from more than 10,000 Canadians who answered an online gambling survey.

They also interviewed individuals across Canada, spoke to focus groups of people who gamble, and consulted experts in harm reduction, treatment and the issues that can stem from gambling.

The three guidelines are the result of the first large-scale comprehensive project to develop lower-risk gambling guidelines.

Until now, our best advice to people who gamble was to set personal spending and time limits, David Hodgins, professor of psychology at the University of Calgary and co-chair of the working group, said in the release. We can now provide more specific direction on what these limits should be, based upon the experiences of tens of thousands of individuals.

Gambling can lead to not only financial damage, but also relationship conflicts, emotional and psychological distress, and health problems, such as exacerbating substance abuse issues.

Around one to three per cent of Canadians struggle with a gambling disorder, but the effects of gambling can extend across all of those who gamble, as well as their families.

In the process of developing these guidelines, researchers discovered that the more days a person gambled a month, the more likely they were to bet more money than they could afford, with this risk going up significantly after a person spent a week permonth gambling.

Survey data showed that 30 per cent of those reporting financial harm from gambling had gambled 24 days per month. Fifteen per cent of those who gambled seven days out of the month reported that they bet more than they could afford.

A graphic from the report expanding on the development of these guidelines provided more detail about the three points.

The graph showedthat gambling only one per cent of your household income before tax means that those making $10,000 per year should only gamble $8 a month, while those who make $150,000 should gamble no more than $125 a month.

The types of gambling a person partakes in include things like horse racing, card games, slots, sports outcomes, scratch tickets, and online poker, among others.

Along with these guidelines, researchers came up with other tips.

They stated that there is a strong association between substance use disorders and problem gambling, and that limiting substance use while gambling can help reduce it.

If a person has a special event or trip coming up where theyll be gambling, its helpful to set limits ahead of time. Limiting access to money by leaving credit cards at home on some excursions, or downloading apps that prevent your phone from making payments can help.

CCSA recommends scheduling plans right after gambling sessions, to prevent a session from going longer than originally planned, and thinking about whether gambling alone or with others changes your behaviour.

Thinking about how much money can be allotted to entertainment can also help as well.

More information about the guidelines and other tips can be found on the new website, gamblingguidelines.ca, where Canadians can find more resources, as well as a risk assessment tool, which is expected to launch later in the fall.

The report added that although these guidelines should limit risk for most individuals, it may not work for everyone.

You should consider gambling less than these guidelines recommend or not at all if you experience problems from alcohol, cannabis or other drug use, experience problems with anxiety or depression, [or] have a personal or family history of problems with gambling, the report stated.

Think about your reasons for gambling. Is it for fun? If youre gambling to escape problems, youre more likely to experience harm from gambling and might find it harder to stick to the suggested limits.

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Heading to a casino? There are new guidelines to help minimize your gambling risks - CTV News

Betting has long been a part of the National Football Leagues DNA. Two of its founding fathers, Art Rooney and Tim Mara, were gamblers.

Rooney bankrolled the early years of the Pittsburgh Steelers with a small fortune he won at Saratoga Race Course. Mara, his close friend, was a bookmaker who bought the New York Giants for $500.

For decades, however, N.F.L. officials went to great lengths to distance the league from the tens of billions of dollars wagered on its games legally in Las Vegas but also with offshore sports betting shops, in office and bar pools and among illegal bookies. The N.F.L. backed the Unlawful Internet Gambling Prohibition and Enforcement Act of 2006 and fought New Jerseys efforts to allow its casinos and horse tracks to take bets on football games.

Were trying to do whatever we can to make sure our games are not betting vehicles, Joe Browne, an N.F.L. spokesman, told The New York Times in 2008.

We have been accused of allowing gambling because it is good for the popularity of the game, he added. If thats true, then we have wasted hundreds of thousands of dollars opposing gambling on our games.

What the N.F.L. once sold as a principled stand, however, has more recently given way to a far more pragmatic one. As betting on football ballooned into a multibillion-dollar industry, and as state after state acted to legalize it, the N.F.L. was left with a stark choice: to continue to fight gambling on its games, or to embrace it in exchange for a significant cut of casino marketing dollars.

And that money the league once spent on lobbying against gambling? This season, the N.F.L. is getting it all back. And then some.

On its opening weekend, celebrities such as Ben Affleck, Martin Lawrence and Jamie Foxx headlined commercials that aired during N.F.L. game broadcasts, pitching betting as just a click away with a WynnBET, DraftKings, FanDuel or BetMGM account. The NFL Network included betting lines on its ticker for the first time.

Belated or not, the N.F.L.s embrace of gambling is, well, lucrative. League and industry experts expect the revenue from gambling companies for the N.F.L. and its teams to be several hundred million dollars this season.

Over the next 10 years, this is going to be a more than $1 billion opportunity for the league and our clubs, said Christopher Halpin, chief strategy and growth officer for the N.F.L.

Little more than three years after the Supreme Court struck down a federal law that prohibited sports gambling in most states, sports betting companies are meeting an eager audience. GeoComply Solutions, a company that uses geolocation to help confirm that bettors gambling online are doing so from places where betting is legal, said it processed 58.2 million transactions in the United States during the N.F.L.s opening weekend, more than double what it handled during the same weekend last season.

We expected high volumes, but what we have seen has surprised us nonetheless, said Lindsay Slader, a managing director with GeoComply, which is based in Canada. The level of demand across new markets, such as Arizona, indicates that consumers have long waited for the option to legally place a sports bet.

The company said the bets came from 18 U.S. states and the District of Columbia. Soon, more states are likely to join.

New York has approved online betting and is in the process of determining which operators will be allowed to take wagers. And sports betting measures are under consideration in heavily populated states such as California, Texas and Florida, where sports book operators are spending heavily to get a foothold.

You have to look at the size of the prize, said Craig Billings, chief executive of Wynn Interactive. I think this is going to be the same size of market as the commercial casino industry in the U.S., $40 billion annually or more.

That is why he hired Affleck to direct and star, alongside Shaquille ONeal, in a commercial, and his company has plans to spend more than $100 million on advertising throughout the N.F.L. season.

Being part of the in-game broadcast is important its our most popular sport with a core audience of early adopters that have been betting offshore, Billings said. Its a rifle shot you have to take.

WynnBET is hardly alone.

Through Sept. 9 this year, DraftKings spending on national television advertising is up 98 percent compared with the same period a year earlier, while FanDuels spending has more than doubled, according to estimates from the research firm iSpot.TV.

Overall, gambling companies spent $7.4 million on advertisements during the first week of prime time games, 9 percent more than they did during last years opening games on Thursday, Sunday and Monday nights, according to estimates from EDO, a TV ad measurement platform.

The dollars are starting to add up, said John Bogusz, the executive vice president of sports sales and marketing for CBS Sports.

The network saw a surge in advertising interest for N.F.L. broadcasts this year. Bogusz attributed a good portion of the growth to sports betting ads.

Overall, the volume is up among all advertisers, but that added to it as well, he said. I think it will continue to grow.

Dan Lovinger, the executive vice president of advertising sales for NBC Sports Group, said on a conference call that the surge from sports betting operators was reminiscent to when the fantasy category opened up.

In 2015, FanDuel and DraftKings spent millions blitzing the airwaves with commercials to gain a larger audience for daily fantasy games, where fans pay an entry fee to assemble rosters of real football players to play against the rosters of other fantasy players.

The blitz worked. Sort of.

The campaigns attracted customers but also the attention of regulators and prompted complaints from viewers who grew weary of the repetitive advertisements. Both companies spent fortunes on lawyers and lobbyists and endured intact to pivot to sports betting.

The average amount of actual game action over the course of a three-hour broadcast of an N.F.L. game is about 11 minutes. Halpin said the leagues internal research showed that among its fans age 21 and older, roughly 20 percent were frequent sports bettors who were mostly young and male, and that another 20 percent mostly women over 55 were active rejecters.

To navigate this stark divide, as well as persuade those in the middle, the N.F.L. decided to limit sports betting ads to one per quarter along with a pregame and halftime spot six in all per broadcast.

It also largely eschewed talk of odds and spreads directly during the biggest N.F.L. game broadcasts.

We have to avoid oversaturation of the game with sports betting talk or risk alienating fans, Halpin said. My mother loves her N.F.L., but she doesnt want gambling talk.

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The N.F.L.s New Play: Embrace Betting Ads, Watch the Money Pour In - The New York Times

In recent years, the online gambling market has achieved significant growth going from a nice market in the late 1990s to a billion-dollar industry. And it is set to achieve further growth, with reports showing that the global online gambling market is expected to grow from $64.13 billion last year to more than $72 billion this year this translates into a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 12.3 per cent. The market is expected to hit $112 billion in 2025, at a CAGR or 12 per cent.

But what are the factors contributing to the popularity of online casinos?

Advances in technology have certainly played an important role especially internet penetration and the increasing adoption of smartphones, which both eased access to casino gaming platforms. This means that nowadays, players can access any online casino from their smartphone wherever they are and this has met the players demand for easily accessible forms of entertainment. As long as they have an internet connection, players can be entertained anywhere, any time.

Such advances are consistent with the industry pushing continuous innovation. In fact, the industry is constantly proposing elements that keep this form of entertainment thrilling, convenient and safe with the more recent innovations including pay and play casinos as well as the use of cryptocurrencies in online gambling.

Another element that the online gambling industry thrives on is the sheer variety of games available, ranging from bingo and poker to lottery and video slots. Online casinos have an unlimited space for games as there is no need for physical space. This means that there is the proverbial something-for-everyone, from old favourites to new and exciting games, and anything in between. Of course, no players has the time available to trawl the internet looking for the latest or most popular games but online guides with expert reviews provide players with quick and easy advice on which online casino has the best games, the more attractive bonuses and the easiest and safest payment options.

Online casinos also make it easy to play and entice new players with exciting bonuses and offers. Online casinos also design tutorials for their games, so players can learn without spending any money and when players get the hang of a game, they are encouraged to keep playing through attractive incentives.

The industry has also boosted its responsible gambling credentials with trustworthy and licensed casinos investing in keeping their players simultaneously safe and entertained. Casinos also invest heavily in cybersecurity measures in order to ensure that their customers data is secure.

These factors all combine to continue making online gambling attractive to new and existent players thus contributing to the growth of the industry.

Disclaimer: Play responsibly. Players must be over 18. For help visit https://www.gamcare.org.uk/.

Independent journalism costs money. Support Times of Malta for the price of a coffee.

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Online gambling hits the jackpot - Times of Malta

We Indians have had quite a long-standing tryst with playing various indoor games as well as indulging in gambling. Speaking from a cultural and sentimental perspective, in the Indian society, gambling has been often seen as vice and been labelled as an unethical or immoral act and rightly so, as studies across the world have shown that gambling, especially when done repetitively and/or desperately, can lead to a multitude of individual behavioral as well as societal problems ranging from addiction, financial losses/debts, relationship problems and health issues like Gambling Disorder.

On the other hand, gaming has been largely proven to be a positive and enabling skill, that is not only fun but also sparks creativity and fosters social connections.

In the recent years, as both gambling and gaming are increasingly going the online or digital route and are also converging with each other in many ways. But, theres a major dilemma associated with the growing spillover effects in the gaming and gambling arenas viz. people are not able to differentiate skill-based online gaming from gambling.

And hence, they have started using the two terms interchangeably gaming and gambling which is quite problematic! It is unfortunate to note that even many industry pundits are nowadays saying that even all types of real money based games should be outrightly banned, just because these have some similarities with online gambling!

In my opinion, equating skill-based real money gaming with gambling is akin to saying apples and oranges are the same! It makes no sense. But why do I say so? First and foremost, in skill gaming, the most important factor that any gamer would want to master would be the skill, strategies and in-depth knowledge of the particular game he/she is playing as at the end of the day, to win or to perform optimally, skill and competence are what obviously will matter the most.

However, in any type of online gambling, the predominant factor to win money is fate or probability (counting on the odds) which means even if you are skilled, it does not guarantee you success in gambling.

Secondly, the motivation of gamers no matter whether he/she is an amateur or a pro is to play a game or enter into a gaming tournament for the fun, relaxation and/or social element of it, rather than only for earning money. The gaming ecosystem thrives on immense passion, engagement and vibrancy.

On the other hand, in gambling sites or apps, one would usually go only for satiating the desire (or greed) to get-rich-quick and earn more and more money, and furthermore he/she would also be required (in most cases) to deposit a certain amount before being allowed to start gambling.

In India, monetary stakes (wagers) are usually placed on online card games like Rummy, Poker, Teen Patti and Fantasy games like Fantasy Cricket and Fantasy Soccer although this does not necessarily imply that playing or taking part in these real money-based games makes one a gambler!

We need to understand the distinction between games of chance and games of skill given the current scenario in India wherein in most States, betting money on a game of chance is deemed illegal, but placing wagers on a game of skill is, in fact, legal in many places (or at least can be legally defended in a court of law).

A game of skill is one where a players success is determined on the basis of how efficiently he/she plays the game and how much he is able to put his/her skills to use. Whereas in most games of chance, the gameplay and even winners are randomly determined, either manually or via technology (maybe through an algorithm or a specified programming), and therefore the winning and the prize has majorly got to do with the luck of a player.

In 2019, in the Ravindra Singh Chaudhary vs. Union of India case, the Rajasthan High Court had ruled that Fantasy Sports did not constitute gambling as its players would need skills similar to that of a real sports team manager.

In a recent ruling, the Tamil Nadu High Court has struck down the States ban on online card games like Rummy, Poker etc. These are welcome developments related to differentiating games of chance and games of skill, and shall go a long way in promoting a positive narrative in favour of gaming against gambling.

According to an EY-All India Gaming Federation report, the online gaming sector in India is seen as one of the fastest-growing sectors, which is estimated to cross $2 billion by 2023. Given the humongous potential that skill-based games hold for the future, especially towards enabling huge economic growth and in furthering Aatmanirbhar Bharat over the long term, it is time India develops a clear, specific and effective policy making on this front to keep up the growth momentum of the skill gaming industry.

At the same time, it is also upon all the stakeholders viz media, gamers and gaming enthusiasts and the gaming companies in our country to fight the misperception of skill based gaming with any type of gambling. Once there is a clear and government-authorised demarcation between skill-based games and chance-based games, its quite likely that gaming would not have had to feel as much heat or wrath as it is facing today due to the perils associated with gambling.

The writer is Founder & CEO, EWar Games

Link:

Skill-based real money gaming is not gambling - BusinessLine