By Sunil Yadav
Online gaming has become the latest haven for players to prove their mettle. Fanning this excitement are tournaments that challenge young gamers and help the industry grow. Skill-based mobile gaming is already poised to gain over 50% of the global gaming market share by 2020. Despite being a fast-growing industry, skill-based gaming still faces legal roadblocks countrywide because of low awareness and ensuing confusion with chance-based gaming and gambling.
Fundamental features of these two categories are poles apart in reality. Therefore, let’s understand them better.
Skill-based, chance-based games, and the law
Firstly, the game of skill can be won only based on the expertise of the player, while a game of chance employs a higher component of luck rather than the efficacy of the player. Skill-based games provide chances to improve gamers’ skills, evaluate their progress at various stages, and often earn rewards along the way. Chess and carrom are the best examples of basic skill-based games.
For accurate analyses, Indian courts have relied on the ‘dominant factor test’. However, blanket curbs by several state legislatures are detracting skill-based categories from a successful future, supported by a bustling community of talented gamers and developers. While the noble intention is to safeguard players from gambling, several rulings have undervalued the potential of the skill-based gaming industry.
Over the years, various high courts have accepted fantasy games as those which require skill, judgment, and discretion of the player besides following rules. Multiple high court rulings assert that online sports games fall outside the ambit of sports gambling, and they have drawn its parallels with other skill-based games like horse riding. Also, as per Indian law, except in two southern states and a few north-eastern states, Fantasy gaming is permitted all over the country.
Noteworthy headways
Fantasy gaming, a favourite of Indian youth, is ruled to be a game of skill by the Nagaland Prohibition of Gambling and Promotion and Regularisation of Online Games of Skill Act, 2015, since it involved team selection and analysing of the game.
The Supreme Court has also declared Rummy to be a skill-based game because of the techniques employed, thus differentiating them from totally chance-based games such as ‘Flush’ and ‘Brag’. Again, there is active public discourse over the recently released Rajasthan Virtual Sports Regulation (Bill), which mandates fantasy game developers to require a license for operation in the state. On this note, the Skill Games Council of India and the E-Gaming Federation (EGF) have urged the law-making body to include all skill-based games in the bill, in order to be impartial.
Spotting the black sheep with stringent guidelines
Indian lawmakers are unanimous in the need for a centralised regulatory body, which will execute a legal framework to classify gambling and skill-based gaming. Taxes play a major role in this. As we evolve our understanding of the vast space of online gems, it’s always feasible to take a cue from international law. Besides the dominant factor, there is the Material Element test that focuses on the probability of chance influencing the outcome of the game. There is also the ‘Any Chance’ test that determines if luck can influence the outcome of a game.
We need to understand that skill-based gaming functions solely on the talent of the player, and hence, is a great industry in the making. Skill-based games can boost employment opportunities across industries. To make this ecosystem thrive, all state governments need to dig deep into the specifics of the gaming process in consultation with industry experts. As per a Reportlinker.com report titled ‘Fantasy Sports Market: Segmented by Type; By Application; and Region – Global Analysis of Market Size, Share & Trends for 2019–2020 and Forecasts to 2030’, the global fantasy sports market is going to surpass $64. 73 million by 2030, from $21. 95 million in 2020, at a CAGR of 14.7%.
The author is the CEO of PlayerzPot Pvt Ltd
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