cricket line bettingWelcome to Online Cricket Betting
Let me start this section off with this –
Laws, gambling or otherwise, are vague. It doesn’t matter what country you’re looking into.
A lot of things are going to ‘depend’ or be considered a ‘grey area.’ Nothing is ever black or white.
And that’s definitely the case for India’s gambling laws.
One reason for this (in India’s case) is that they rely on outdated laws that don’t factor in the advances in technology.
Take the Public Gambling Act of 1867, for example.
This is more than 150 years old. But the country still leans on this law as if it’s relevant.
The PGA doesn’t do much – it merely makes running a gambling house illegal. The penalty is relatively small – ?100 and/or 1 month prison.
This law also brings up the luck vs skill argument. And while you could say that online betting (and poker and blackjack) are more about skill than luck, the goverment doesn’t seem to see things that way.
So, sports betting is a grey area at best, and illegal at worst.
(Though that hasn’t stopped an estimated $60 billion from flowing through the country – half of which is assumed to be wagered illegally.) To our knowledge, not a single person has been fined or arrested in India for online gambling.
Fortunately, India allows each state to determine their own gambling laws.
It’s possible to gamble (legally) in Goa, Daman and Sikkim. In fact, there are 12 brick and mortar casinos between Goa and Sikkim alone, where you can bet on sports and play casino games.
But, only offline.
Online gambling is possible. But because of the Information Technology Act 2000, any activity the government views as corruptible to its people is prohibited. This comes with fines of up to ?1,00,000 and/or 5 years in prison.
But, it’s still possible.
Indians are able to place bets with offshore betting sites and casinos. A couple examples include Bet365, 10CRIC and Betway. All 3 are top-notch betting sites, and all 3 accept Indian players.
And since they’re offshore there is little the Indian government can do (outside of getting involved with payment processing – which we have already covered – or censoring what their people can do online, which it sounds like they’re doing or trying to do).
So, that’s the long and short of it.
However, there might be a new hope on the horizon. The new report (July 2018) from the law commission in India states that:
If a complete ban is unenforceable the only viable way to deal with cricket line bettingWelcome to Online Cricket Betting gambling is via effective regulation – (page 115 9.8)
As always, we can expect a lot of back and forth between the politicians before anything happens. The opposition is ready to exploit any hint of betting as much as possible. Minister for Law & Justice, Ravi Shankar Prasad, latest reply (Aug 2018) seems vague at best.
Experts and players alike think it will take years to turn into law.
So, the short answer: