Online Gaming Bill: Companies turn to law; Panic grips gamers

Happy Thursday! Gaming companies are prepping legal challenges to the new Online Gaming Bill. This and more in today’s ETtech Morning Dispatch.

Also in the letter:
■ New Tata Digital CEO
■ Infosys bonus
■ Centricity UHNI push

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Union Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw

The Promotion and Regulation of Online Gaming Bill, 2025, which outlaws real money gaming, is one step closer to becoming law after clearing the Lok Sabha on Wednesday. Industry players are now preparing to take the legal route in search of relief.

Driving the news: Online gaming executives and lawyers told ET that the planned legal challenges will attempt to pit the proposed legislation against previous Supreme Court rulings that protected skill-based gaming.

Devil in the details:

• The Bill makes no distinction between games of skill and games of chance, a move that could weaken the legal standing of companies running fantasy sports, poker, rummy, and similar formats.
• It also proposes the creation of a central regulator with sweeping powers to decide which games are legal. This opens the door for possible bans on platforms such as Dream11, Gameskraft, Games 24x7, Pokerbaazi, Rupee, and Winzo Games, these experts said.

Quote, unquote: “While typically any new statute passed by parliament gets tested on its own merits, in this case, given past protections, especially in the context of games of skill, there could be a degree of overlap that gets tested,” said Mihir Rale, partner, Cyril Amarchand Mangaldas.


S Krishnan, secretary, Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology

Online gaming, esports, and creative formats are not under scrutiny, said S Krishnan, secretary at the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY). The real concern, he told ET in an interview, is with games that involve real money.

Skill or chance: Krishnan added that money stakes in games with unpredictable outcomes blur the distinction between skill and chance. The proposed restrictions, he clarified, target only harmful formats involving cash.

Matter of jurisdiction: When asked if the Centre had the authority to regulate such games, Krishnan said yes. “Games involving trade and commerce across states, or internationally, fall under the Union List.”

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Stopping money from being spent in online games could drive both big names and big money out of the space, experts told ET.

Driving the news:

• Bollywood celebrities and sports stars are steering clear of endorsing online gaming apps, at least for now. The Bill proposes a steep penalty—up to two years in jail, a Rs 50 lakh fine, or both—for such endorsements.
• Even Dream11’s three-year sponsorship deal with the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) is under a cloud, people with direct knowledge of the matter said.

Zoom out: India’s gaming platforms spend around $2 billion (around Rs 17,000 crore) a year on advertisements and marketing. Big brands like Dream11, Mobile Premier League, WinZo and RummyCircle have splashed out on celebrity endorsements across sport and cinema.

But, if the law goes through, “all of this can vanish overnight,” said Siddharth Jhawar, country manager-India at digital marketing platform Moloco.



As the government considers banning real money gaming, gamers are rushing to withdraw their funds while they still can.

Boss fight: Founders are scrambling to calm nerves — urging employees and users to hold steady as the sector stares down its most formidable challenge yet. The immediate risk is a wave of wallet withdrawals, with fears of a ‘bank run’ looming. Several gaming firms may not have enough liquidity to survive the hit.

State of play: Executives warn the crackdown could backfire. “This will promote the illegal peer-to-peer networks which collect cash offline and funnel crores of rupees overseas,” said an executive at one of the affected companies.

Also Read: ETtech Explainer: What happens after Lok Sabha clears Online Gaming Bill?

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N Chandrasekaran, executive chairman, Tata Sons

Tata Digital, the owner of Tata Neu superapp, will hand the reins to an external CEO, people in the know told us.

Driving the news: The incoming CEO will be tasked with overhauling the platform and tightening operations. A key part of the role will be to align Tata Digital’s consumer-facing businesses – BigBasket (grocery delivery), Tata 1mg (epharmacy), Croma (electronics retail), and Tata Cliq (lifestyle retail) – all of which sit under the Tata Group’s digital commerce portfolio.


Quick recap: This will be the company’s third CEO since its launch in 2019. The last one, Naveen Tahiliyani, exited abruptly in July, less than a year into the job. His departure, insiders say, stemmed from strategic disagreements and lacklustre results. The move comes in the backdrop of scale-up challenges hampering business growth at the Tata Group company, a person aware of the development told ET.

Closer look: The leadership change is part of a wider overhaul led by Tata Sons chairman N Chandrasekaran, who has temporarily taken direct control of Tata Digital. With the group aiming to plug delivery gaps and course-correct its ecommerce play, underperforming leaders are being held to account.

Also Read: Puneet Chhatwal, Sunil D’Souza join Tata Digital board after Naveen Tahilyani’s exit

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The ET Soonicorns Summit is coming back to Bengaluru. Bigger, bolder, and with a footprint that is reaching far beyond Bengaluru, across the innovation hubs of India, driving important conversations, building ecosystems, connections, and stronger bonds.

What is new? And what makes the Summit this year a phenomenon rather than an event?

• An expansion beyond the mainstage! The ET Soonicorns Sundowner series launched in Hyderabad on July 31st, where we unveiled our first-ever regional (Andhra Pradesh-Telangana) startup cluster analysis. The next startup stops in the ET Soonicorns Sundowner series are Gurugram on 11th September and Mumbai, with the date yet to be announced.
• National footprints! The Summit is taking curated startup conversations to India’s rising innovation hubs, beyond the traditional metro strongholds.
• The boldest evolution yet! The ET Soonicorns Sundowner Series is a spin-off from the flagship ET Soonicorns Summit 2025.

About Hyderabad Sundowner:

• Picture this: an intimate evening where Hyderabad’s startup ecosystem came alive. We unveiled the ET Top Soonicorns and Minicorns X Priority Sectors | Telangana 2025—our first-ever regional cluster analysis. The panel ‘Built in Hyderabad: The Rise of India’s Product-First Startups’ delivered unfiltered insights about why Hyderabad is quietly becoming India’s most capital-efficient, product-focused startup corridor.

Just the beginning:

• Our evolution goes deeper than geography. This year’s four comprehensive reports abandon traditional city- and valuation-focused analysis for a more sophisticated approach—examining startup clusters, priority sectors, and tracking the rise of minicorns alongside soonicorns. Our methodology has matured, our lens has sharpened, and our insights have become more actionable.

We’re not just hosting an event; we’re building a movement that spans India’s innovation geography. This year, the ET Soonicorns Summit 2025 also hosted a curtain-raiser livestream on August 12th, diving deep into AI’s transformative potential and ethical challenges. And today, AI isn’t just a topic; it’s the pulse of every conversation.

Join us at the ET Soonicorns Summit 2025 on 22 August.

Also Read: InMobi’s Mohit Saxena on building an indigenous tech stack in the AI age at ET Soonicorns Summit 2025

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Big bonus for Infosys staff: Infosys awarded performance bonuses to eligible employees for the April-June quarter, averaging 80%, compared to 65% in the January-March quarter.

Centricity eyes ultra-rich clients: The wealthtech startup has hired 30 senior private bankers to scale its ultra-high-net-worth individual (UHNI) segment as it looks to expand beyond metros and strengthen its presence in smaller cities.

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