Andhra Pradesh Government Bans Betting on Online Games
The Andhra Pradesh government has banned online gambling games🦹 like rummy, ❀poker, fantasy sports.
This move by the government of Y꧋S Jaganmohan Reddy is expected to be a setback for platforms like MPL and Dream11, who will lose users from the state amid the ongoing Indian Premier League i♍n UAE.
Any operator running games in the states will get one year imprisonment, and the players will get six months imprisonment, in the first instance. T🍎he punishment term increases to two years for both operators and players if they are found guilty again.
The state’s government shared the Andhra💮 Pradesh Gaming (Amendment) Ordinance-20🔴20 prohibiting online gambling on Friday.
As per a in Outlook India, the ordinance prohibits, ‘(i) coll🎐ection or soliciting of bets; (ii) receipt or distribution of winning or prizes in money or otherwise in respect of any wager or bet; (iii) any act which is intended to aid, induce, solicit or facilitate wagering or betting or such collection, soliciting, receipt or distribution and (iv) any act of risking money or playing stakes or otherwise on the result of a game or an event including on a game of skill.’
For quite some time, the Andhra Pradesh gꩵovernment 🐓has been seriously considering taking stern measures against online rummy. The vice president of the Andhra Pradesh unit of Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), S. Vishnuvardhan Reddy, even wr💝ote a letter in May to Jaganmohan Reddy, urging🍰 him to ban online rummy and other 🅺betting games in the state.
Legality of games like rummy vary from st๊ate to state, in India. The Supreme Court has classified rummy as a game of skill.
However, online rummy is illegal in Telangana under the amended Telangana Gaming Act, 1974, which prohibits playing online games with stakes in the state. The Andhra Pra🍒desh government has followed suit to ban games that involve betting.
The Karnataka government is 🐼considering plans to re𒅌gulate the rapidly growing online gambling industry, while Karnataka BJP MP K C Ramamurthy recently demanded a ban on online rummy.
