Goa Close to Adopting New Rules on Gaming Following Meghalaya
Three years after Goa appointed a Gaming Commissioner, the state’s Home Department reportedly has finalized the gaming rules aimed to streamline the local casino industry and has filed the draft at the office of Chief Minister Pramod Sawant for approval. In the meantime, the northeastern state of Meghalaya adopted a new Gaming Act and backed it up with a Bill of Rules to be ranked India’s state with the most liberal stance on gaming, ranging from online 3 patti real cash games to land-based casinos and all modes of skill and chance gaming.
“My government intends to notify new rules for casino operations in the state under the Goa, Daman and Diu Public Gambling Act, 1976, which will streamline and regulate the operations of casinos in the state.” CM Sawant announced during his recent budget speech.
In 2019, Goa added the title of Gaming Commissioner to the post of the state’s Commissioner of Commercial Taxes, but the powers and responsibilities that go with the new appointment haven’t been officially defined yet.
When adopted, the new rules will fix this and are expected to vest the Gaming Commissioner with various functions to oversee and control casino activities in Goa, some of which are currently performed by the Home Minister. There will probably be a ban on local Goa residents to enter casino establishments and play there.
The new set of rules is also expected to clarify ambiguous positions in the state’s legislation over water- and land-based casinos and enable them to better plan their future activities and expand their business.
Meghalaya Overhauled Goa
At the same time, a state in the other end of the country – northeastern Meghalaya, overhauled Goa and was ranked first in terms of its liberal stance on gaming in a recent report by the UK India Business Council (UKIBC) after a complete and fast makeover of its gaming legislation last year.
For over half a century, Meghalaya had a complete ban on all forms of gaming with the exception of lottery and archery-based Shillong Teer. Then, in the beginning of 2021, the state nullified the Meghalaya Prevention of Gambling Act, 1970 and changed it with the Meghalaya Regulation of Gaming Act. In December, the Regulation of Gaming Rules was adopted and notified.
The new legislation introduced a Gaming Commission and a licensing regime over offline and online casino real money gaming, including games of skill and games of chance. Again, it is expected the casinos and online gaming to be made available only to tourists and visitors to the state.
The changes earned Meghalaya a score of 92.85 out of 100 possible points in the UKIBC index measuring the extent to which each state has legalized gaming and betting based on their stance on seven different games – lottery, horse racing, sports betting, poker, rummy, casino, and fantasy sports.
Thus, Meghalaya got the first place, outranking Sikkim’s score of 85.71 and the 71.43 points earned by Goa, Nagaland and West Bengal. For comparison, Andhra Pradesh was ranked lowest with just 7.14 points, while the states of Odisha, Arunachal Pradesh and Telangana received 14.29 points each.
A Change of Wind
The gaming liberalization race between Goa and Meghalaya signals a profound change of wind regarding the stance among the states of India towards gaming regulation moving away from the idea of blanket bans. This change is also backed up by the recent announcement of Rajasthan Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot that the state is planning to regulate online skill gaming. Rajasthan has a current score of 42.86 in the UKIBC index and just one year before had announced plans to ban all online games that involve bets.
Within that one year, a wave of gaming bans was swept away by high courts, including a blanket ban on all forms of online gaming in Karnataka, including skill-based games, if any transfer of money is involved, another blanket ban on gaming in Tamil Nadu, and a ban on online rummy for stakes in Kerala.
All these bans were found contradictory to the Union Constitution by the respective high court benches and a number of state governments have come to the conclusion that the right approach to gaming is regulation while blanket bans are ineffective and unconstitutional.
We can expect more states to follow the trend set by Meghalaya, as gaming regulation not only secures higher revenue collection for the state coffers, but also creates a safer gaming environment for the citizens.
