The Union Cabinet on Tuesday (August 19, 2025) approved a Bill to effectively prohibit real money games (RMGs) online, a multi-billion dollar industry that counts fantasy sports platforms such as Dream11 and card game apps, including PokerBaazi. The Promotion and Regulation of Online Gaming Bill, 2025 is now headed to Parliament and is likely to be tabled on Wednesday.
The move was not telegraphed in any public way by the government before the Cabinet approved it, with no draft Bill circulated by the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology, as has been done for a number of notifications and the Digital Personal Data Protection Act, 2023.
