Copyright © HT Digital Streams Limit all rights reserved. The government must stop working like a caretaker and trust that its people can do what they need to take care of for themselves. (AFP) Summary of India’s government must trust people to make the right decisions instead of jumping in to protect them from themselves too much. Ask parents. They understand the boundaries of the young people. Last week, out of the blue, the Government of India brought a £ 2 trillion industry to its knees. In the course of a few short days, a brand new law against online gambling was placed in front of both houses of parliament, and before anyone had time to respond, voted and passed. The law has since received the president’s consent. Once it comes into effect, it will offer anyone who either offers or helps and the presentation of real money games that are up to three years imprisonment. The promotion and regulation of online spelling law, 2025, defines three categories of games: e-sports, online money games and online social games. Although both e-sports and social games are allowed, online money games are unequivocally prohibited. Not only can these games be offered in India anymore, no one can advertise them or facilitate financial transactions associated with them. Also read: Regulate play in all respects, but let the plan to prohibit “right-money games” in the wake of its portion, questions were asked about the power of the central government to execute such a law, given that it is under the Constitution that has the power to have “betting and gambling”. However, the government seems confident and is willing to defend the law before the courts if it comes. Either way, I am not so concerned about whether the government can execute such a law as much as it should. If we look past the improper rabbit with which this law was passed, there are several essential reasons why the approach used by the government is not devised. The ban on an activity rarely achieves the proposed policy objective. All it does is force larger companies that could comply with the incentive (and with which it can) to close the store for fear of prosecution and smaller (probably less accurate) entities underground, where it is much harder to police them. If the government was really intended to prevent social damage, what it should have done, to formalize the industry, secure the capital already invested, secured and complied with a strict regulatory framework designed to deliver the objectives. Also read: India’s online game ban: Do our policymakers really listen? For those of us who studied the game industry, it looked like the path the government followed. Online games were made accountable against 28% GST and were subject to mandatory age groups as well as KYC requirements. Businesses are expected to implement grievance officers and submit monthly reports, and questionable gambling sites and programs are blocked in terms of section 69A of the Information Technology Act. Since these measures have already been in place and worked, it is difficult to see why a need felt to have a ban on. The government has tried to justify this extreme measure by playing the damage of online gambling. This argues that the manipulative design and aggressive marketing of these apps has already led to serious social, financial, psychological and public health damage, especially among youth and economically harmed. And that it is used for money laundering, tax evasion and financing of terrorism. Apart from data on the exponential growth of the game industry, the government does not appear to have any empirical evidence to support this conclusion. But even if we trust the government in its Word, there are other more socially corrosive addiction that society has chosen to regulate instead of prohibition. Also read: India’s online game ban: Why does such a great legislative venture take? Although tobacco is responsible for more than a million deaths each year, we can still buy cigarettes in the country. This is despite the fact that in 2017 it was estimated that the economic cost of tobacco addiction was more than £ 1.7 trillion. Although there are no extensive statistics for deaths that can be administered by alcohol, drunk driving in 2022 claimed more than 4,000 lives, and the societal value of health lost due to alcohol is, according to some accounts of £ 6.2 billion. Although some countries have legally banned alcohol, it is not as if alcohol cannot be obtained in these places if you are going to look for it. As far as I could determine, there are no extensive national statistical surveys suggesting that gambling is a social problem on the same scale as alcohol and tobacco. While some countries have counted suicide that is allegedly linked to online rummy games, these numbers are relatively small in comparison, and there is no national estimate of the extent of damage caused. If you look at data from other countries where online gambling is regulated (not prohibited), it is clear that a small and identifiable part of the population is doing unbelieving damage (especially with regard to high-intensity, fast cycle products such as online slot machines). However, the experience of these countries indicates that what we really need, instead of banning online gambling, is to put targeted risk checks in place. Also read: Esseswaran: India’s game ban is a deposit to secure its demographic dividend under the doctrine of Patriae. The government is considered a father figure – used to protect those who cannot take care of themselves. I can see how this spirit motivated the entry into force of this law. But every parent knows that they cannot always be to protect their children, and it is sometimes necessary to allow them to make mistakes so that they can learn how to deal with the many challenges that life will bring to them. It is high time our government does so too. It must implement appropriate regulations, and in addition, it should only trust that people will do what they need to take care of for themselves. The author is a partner at Trilegal and the author of ‘The Third Way: India’s Revolutionary Approach to Data Governance’. Its X handle is @mathan. Catch all the business news, market news, news reports and latest news updates on Live Mint. Download the Mint News app to get daily market updates. More Topics #online Gaming Industry #GST #India Read Next Story
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