Online gambling in India has aroused great interest
among many e-commerce entrepreneurs of India. This is because online
gambling is a very remunerative and profit oriented business.
However, online gambling is also a complicated business filed as many
laws and technical issues have to be resolved at the same time.
We have a central law on gambling called the Public
Gambling Act of 1867. Similarly, we have many state laws on gambling
that are mostly based upon the central law. Further, almost all the
state laws are regulating real world or offline gambling in India.
The exception in this regard can be found in the laws applicable in
places like Goa and Sikkim.
Recently Goa has made its casino laws very stringent
keep in mind the money laundering, black money and tax evasion issues
in mind. Similarly, Sikkim is also in the process of harmonising its
laws with the central laws.
As far as judiciary is concerned, the Supreme Court
of India has made a distinction between skills based and chance based
gaming activities. Of course, each case depends upon its own facts
and circumstances and the respective state law and we cannot apply
one decision uniformly in all cases of gambling and online gambling.
The e-commerce
laws and regulations in India are still at the infancy
stage. As a matter of fact, a majority of e-commerce portals and
players in India are not following the laws of the land in true
letter and spirit. Surprisingly, there is a general misconception
among the e-commerce players of India that for running an e-commerce
website in India they need not to follow much law. On the contrary,
there are well recognised legal
requirements to start an e-commerce website in India and
the legal
formalities required for starting e-commerce business in India.
The chief among these e-commerce players are online
pharmacies, online gambling and gaming portals,
electronics e-commerce websites, etc. They fail to understand that
use of technology has brought additional legal issues that are
primarily techno legal in nature. Their continued ignorance may bring
civil, criminal and financial penalties. The recent spate of FDI
crackdowns by India government proves this point.
At Perry4Law
and Perry4Law’s
Techno Legal Base (PTLB) we believe that cyber
law due diligence, Internet
intermediary liability and cyber
due diligence for Indian companies must be kept in mind by
various e-commerce websites and players. The skill and chance and
state subject legal arguments are not sufficient to comply with
complicated techno legal requirements of India as on date. So before
launching an e-commerce portal, the concerned person or company must
make it sure that techno legal requirements are duly complied with.
