CHENNAI: The Madras high court on Thursday set aside the ban imposed by the Tamil Nadu government on online rummy and poker. The prohibition can continue against games of chances but not against rummy and poker which are games of skill, the HC said.
The first bench of Chief Justice Sanjay Vijaykumar Gangapurwala and Justice P D Audikesavalu passed the order while partly allowing the pleas moved by online gaming portals challenging the prohibition.
However, the state can regulate online rummy and poker by imposing conditions on age of player, timing and others, the bench said.
According to the gaming companies, a game cannot be categorised as legal when played in physical mode and illegal when played in online mode.
The gaming companies, which offer online platforms to play rummy, cannot be held as running gambling as they pay GST to the government and collect only 16% of the stakes as charges for providing the platform, they said.
They added that the state government can only regulate online games but cannot prohibit them.
Justifying the prohibition, the Tamil Nadu government contended that not even a single player who was aggrieved of the ban on online rummy had approached the court challenging the ban. But only profit-earning companies that organise the online games had approached the court, the state said.
The Supreme Court has made it clear that authorities have powers to prohibit playing rummy outside the premises of clubs. In online mode, the game is played 24/7 without any restriction to location, the state added.
“They (gaming portals) entice the players by offering incentives in order to make profits. There is every possibility of using bots (artificial intelligence) disguised as real players,” the state said.