Introduction

The central government recently enacted the Promotion and Regulation of Online Gaming Act, 2025. The said legislation seeks to promote social and electronic gaming and puts a complete ban on real money games (RMGs), irrespective of being a ‘game of skill’ or ‘game of chance’. The regulation comes at a time when multiple state governments had already banned such real money games under the pretext of ‘law and order’ situation and the central government had also retracted from its earlier proposal to enact Self Regulatory Bodies (SRB) under the IT Amendment Rules, 2023.

Ongoing litigation

WinZO, an online real money gaming company, filed a case against Google Inc. at the Competition Commission of India, alleging distortion of fair play and discrimination when it comes to listing its games on the Play Store. The company had alleged that the Google Play Store serves as a key distribution point and the search giant has selectively listed games of competitors such as DFS and Rummy while debarring others, thereby distorting the level playing field. The company had made other allegations such as discrimination in online gaming and gambling policy and advertisement policy by Google, among others.

As argued elsewhere, online RMGs operated in a legally grey area since the very beginning. This is important as even though the central government had legalised such games under the pretext of ‘game-of-skill vs. game-of-chance’ distinction, the legislative action by multiple state governments shed light on the policy. For instance, Tamil Nadu had enacted the Tamil Nadu Prohibition of Online Gambling and Regulation of Online Games Act, 2022, which placed a similar ban on RMGs under the pretext of financial distress and addiction. Similarly, Karnataka had placed a similar ban on real money games under the Karnataka Police (Amendment) Act, 2021, due to a broad overlap with gambling.

The factual matrix in the WinZO case also shows that the Ministry of Electronics and IT (MeitY), GOI, was partly responsible for perpetuating the impasse. The CCI duly used the referencing mechanism under the Competition Act to consult the Ministry so that the correct position under the law could be identified. The response, however, was unclear on the distinction between the ‘game-of-skill vs. game-of-chance’, which proved to be of limited assistance in the ongoing dispute.

Google’s commitment

A respondent, once under scrutiny, has few options under competition law. One is to fight out the matter, or to file for an amnesty scheme under a ‘law and economics’ framework. Google ought to have contended the matter given the factual matrix involved. This being the case, the commitment offered by the search giant has sufficiently addressed the competition concerns as mentioned in the Centre’s representation.

Policy implications

The Competition Commission of India is a scarcely funded body. This severely limits the regulator’s ability to initiate suo moto cases and undertake advocacy to promote competition. Even in private complaints, the Commission has to prioritise which cases to investigate given the limited resources at its disposal. The Commission ought to have seen the obvious rather than ordering a full-fledged DG investigation in a legally grey area matter.

Even Google ought to have analysed the regulatory landscape before filing for a commitment. The said assessment would have been more in compliance with the Indian law and policy.