It’s not an unknown fact that the online gaming sector is unorganised. The online gaming industry has been evolving at a tremendous pace since forever. Many new players are experimenting with their gaming skills in the online arena of gaming. The Law Commission of India mentions in its 276th report that the current online gaming market will rise to $1 billion by 2021. In order to seek regulations in this ever-expanding industry, a private member’s bill has been introduced by Mr Shashi Tharoor, a member of parliament and a Congress leader.
According to Mr Tharoor, a statutory framework involving government interference is a matter of urgency for ensuring that the licensing conditions are followed by service providers. The generation of black money needs to be curbed and the patterns of suspicious betting have to be tracked. For these purposes, a regulatory body is required by the nation, which has been proposed in his Bill of ‘Online Gaming and Prevention of Fraud’.
Mr Tharoor says the preservation of sports integrity is the main purpose of his bill. For this purpose, the bill is divided into two sections. The first section mentions the special procedure for dealing with the offence of the sports (online gaming) fraud. The other section mentions the possibilities of sporting events manipulation due to the commercial nature of sports which is increasing.
The AIGF (All India Gaming Federation) reports mention that there are about 120 million gamers in India and since the last 3 years, the gamers have increased by 30%. The CEO of AIGF, Roland Lander, says elimination of sports fraud and streamlining the industry is an urgent need and there must be government intervention for fulfilling the purpose.
