The Greek philosopher Plato once wrote that “Good people do not need laws to tell them to act responsibly, while bad people will always find a way around the law.”
He was a clever fella Plato, no doubt, given this quote still has a logical ring of truth to it more than 2,500 years later.
Of course, any lawmakers reading this article will point to the fact that national laws are there to protect the safety and rights of all citizens. Rightly so!
But those laws vary from country to country, and in some cases, they vary wildly because they reflect the history, culture, geography, religion and socioeconomic makeup of the country in question. Many laws have been around for centuries untouched, others are constantly updated, and some scrapped for good.
Throw the introduction of the World Wide Web, just a few decades ago, into the mix, add in the speed of the growth of globalized online trading and companies, and you have a scenario where many countries have been scrambling in recent years to update laws in a world where anyone can buy anything from anywhere at the click of a button.
How to apply the law
This is especially true when it comes to online gambling. There are three main ways countries apply the law to gambling: Regulated Markets, Unregulated But Developing Markets and Prohibited Markets. The team at casinos.win India has helped us take a look at the facts.
Regulated Markets
The United Kingdom is a classic example of a regulated market where gambling online and offline is legal for anyone over 18 years of age. There are many benefits to this approach. Players have recourse if they feel they have been unfairly treated, and operators must undergo audits to make sure games are truly random. Regulated markets also make operators hold players’ money in separate accounts from operational accounts so that they can always afford to pay their customers their money. Operators must also take part in truthful advertising; they must also undertake background checks on players to make sure they can afford to gamble and support people to gamble responsibly with functions such as deposit limits and self-exclusion periods.
Prohibited Markets
These are countries where online and offline gambling is strictly prohibited. This can include the banning of gambling save for state lotteries or sports, such as in Israel or stricter blanket bans on all types of betting, such as in Qatar.
This doesn’t mean gambling doesn’t take place in countries; it means it is illegal to do so. Using a VPN to disguise your location and sign-up to an offshore online casino or taking part in private gambling are just some of the ways people may choose to access gambling in prohibited markets.
Opponents of this type of approach will point to all the negatives this brings that would never happen in a regulated market, including money laundering going unchecked, no recourse for players, no auditing, no safety measures for players and no financial reassurance.
In other words, players do not have a leg to stand on.
Unregulated but Developing Markets
Most countries aren’t regulated, but some are taking steps towards regulation which is often a long and winding road.
If you live in these countries, you have a range of options to gamble online, but you don’t have the backing of a state body to turn to if you fall foul of a rogue operator.
In these countries, which include New Zealand and Canada, the recommendation is to join respected brands that are licensed, with quality deposit and withdrawal methods and a variety of functions to keep you safe, such as deposit limits.
New Zealand is a classic example of a developing market. Online gambling falls outside of the Gambling Act of 2003 and, therefore, is technically illegal in New Zealand. However, the law doesn’t cover offshore online casinos. In other words, you can play at an online casino that isn’t based in New Zealand.
So, where does India fit in when it comes to these very different types of markets?
Similar to the USA, the decision on whether to allow gambling in its many forms is left to the individual state.
At a federal level in India, the overarching law was written over 100 years ago and is called the Public Gambling Act 1867. It prohibits the running or visiting of public gaming houses, and some
states have adopted this approach while others have enacted their own specific territory laws. In the main, gambling is illegal in most states, but not all states and not all types of betting.
The states of Goa, Sikkim, Nagaland and Daman allow gambling in land-based and online casinos.
There is no explicit national law in India that bans people from gambling online at offshore casinos. That means some states like Maharashtra have taken it upon themselves to ban online casinos as part of the Bombay Wager Act, although people can still wager on horse racing and lotteries.
India has started the steps to regulation and is very much in the developing gambling market.
News agency Reuters, exclusively revealed in Sept 2022 that a government report had suggested the “creation of a regulatory body to classify online games as based on skill or chance, introduce rules to block prohibited formats and take a stricter stance on gambling websites.”
There’s still much for the government to discuss ahead of any new body, but this proposal suggests the seeds of regulation are germinating in India,
The report added that the plan was a result of “inconsistent state laws” but that a decision on whether to allow or not to allow gambling would be left to individual states.
This prompts a very big question for the Indian economy. Namely, how big could a regulated online gambling market get?
The UK is the world’s biggest regulated gambling market employing thousands of people and generating a Gross Gambling Yield of more than £12 Billion a year; according to the UK Gambling Commission, with lotteries excluded, it stands at £8 Billion!
A truly jaw-dropping figure that generates more than £3 Billion a year in taxes for the UK government, according to the Office for Budget Responsibility.
Based on gambling traffic from ahrefs.com the gambling aficionados at casinos.win have estimated that the total number of real money players online in India is circa 1,680,000.
If you assume the average player spends 5000 Rs a year, the size of the market is 840 crore (1 crore = 10,000,000 rupee) or $103 Million USD
At a tax rate of 20% that could net the Indian government a cool 50.4 crore a year. The UN recently announced the earth’s population has grown to 8 Billion and is expected to be
9.5 Billion by 2050.
Simple maths would dictate that the upward trend of population growth means more and more gamblers.
With a regulated market, where players are protected and supported, and greater financial surety, India could be seeing 168,000,000 real money gamblers online by 2030, producing a market size of 84,000 crore. The government tax then could jump to an eye popping 5,040 crore a year at a 20% tax on net profit. And that’s just for online gambling. Taxation on land-based casinos or high street betting shops would see a much, much bigger contribution to the state purse.
The introduction of offshore online casinos is driving a need to change the statute books the world over. Mostly because they sit in gray areas of law that are now outdated because of technological development and a global, not national, reach for consumers, and as is the case with a lot of internet’ facts’ consensus is hard to find. That is unless you gamble in the UK, where you can find all the info you need on the UK Gambling Commission website.
Individual governments need to drive this statute change, but for players, we recommend a couple of simple truths. Firstly, ensure that you check the laws where you live before gambling in any form, but especially at an offshore online casino. Secondly, never view gambling as a way to guarantee to make money. Do it for pleasure but never for profit.
