India

Gambling is constitutionally a State List subject, so India historically had no uniform national betting law, leaving online betting via offshore sites in a grey area. This changed with the central Promotion and Regulation of Online Gaming Act, 2025 (assented August 2025; Rules in force 1 May 2026), which bans ALL real-money online games whether skill- or chance-based, plus their advertising and payment facilitation.

Horse-race betting retains its distinct status as a Supreme-Court-recognised game of skill and continues legally as pari-mutuel/tote betting at licensed racecourses and turf-club outlets, but its online real-money channel is now caught by the new ban. Real-money opinion-trading / prediction-market apps (Probo, MPL Opinio) — already disowned by SEBI — are widely viewed as falling under the prohibited "online money games" definition.

Enforcement runs through the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY), though offshore platforms persist. The Act's constitutional validity is under challenge before the Supreme Court, so the regime could still be modified.

The India online sports betting market expanded rapidly for years thanks to massive improvements in connectivity, mobile wagering technology, and payment processing — until the 2025 Act shut the legal door on real-money online gaming.

Indian Betting Sites

Many mainstream international betting sites still accept customers from India and process rupee transactions, but India no longer merely leaves offshore operators unregulated - the 2025 Act bans online money gaming along with the financial transactions and advertising that support it, so there is no class of lawful operator here to choose between.

Indian law is no longer unclear. The central ban on online real-money games means no operator can be licensed to offer online betting anywhere in India, and the offshore sites that still serve customers physically located in India are doing so unlawfully.

Among the offshore operators that still take Indian custom, the largest tend to have the deepest understanding of the Indian sports betting market - but none of them can serve it lawfully: the 2025 Act bans all real-money games, irrespective of whether they are based on skill or chance, and it also prohibits advertising, and facilitating financial transactions for such games.

India Sports Betting Deposits and Withdrawals

Funding an online betting account from India is not a question of which method still works but of a prohibition: the Promotion and Regulation of Online Gaming Act, 2025 (PROG Act) prohibits online money gaming and restricts related financial transactions and advertisements.

Online Horse Racing Betting in India

Horse racing betting is one of the few forms of gambling in India that has been legal for decades, thanks to a 1996 Supreme Court ruling.

In Dr. K.R. Lakshmanan vs State of Tamil Nadu, the Supreme Court ruled that horse racing betting is a game of skill because fans must analyze the horses’ recent forms, pedigrees, track conditions, jockeys, trainers, and many other factors.

The case definitively answered the question of pari-mutuel wagering at racetracks, but the decision came just a few years too early to answer the question of online horse racing betting directly.

However, the 2025 Act bans real-money online games regardless of skill, so the skill arguments underpinning the 1996 Supreme Court case no longer protect online horse racing wagers.

Previously, horse racing fans could visit any mainstream betting site to bet on domestic races like the Indian Derby, the Indian 1000 Guineas, the Indian Oaks, and major international races like the Kentucky Derby and the Grand National, but the 2025 Act has closed the legal online channel; wagering continues at licensed racecourses.

India Sports Betting Laws

For many years, the most significant federal law that could potentially impact sports betting was the Public Gambling Act of 1867, which criminalised keeping or visiting a common gaming house in the provinces that adopted it. Considering the law is more than 150 years old today, it should be no surprise that it does not address online sports betting.

That was the position until 2026. The Promotion and Regulation of Online Gaming Act, 2025 came into effect on May 1 and introduced a nationwide ban on online real-money games, so online sports betting is now forbidden by central law whether the operator sits in India or overseas, and there is no mechanism by which anyone can be licensed to offer it.

Several states, including Telangana, Karnataka, Kerala, Andhra Pradesh, and Tamil Nadu, have passed laws to ban all online betting. However, enforcement has been uneven, and several of these bans have been litigated, with the position in individual states shifting over time.

As a result, many Indian sports fans still reach sports betting sites licensed elsewhere, but since the 2025 Act took effect this offshore betting is no longer legal.

Change did come, but not in the form the industry expected. The 2023 amendments described in the next section would have regulated Indian betting sites through industry self-regulation; what actually arrived was a blanket central prohibition on real-money online gaming.

How India’s Information Technology Rules Were Updated to Address Online Money Gaming

The Information Technology Act of 2000 gives the central government the authority to regulate internet activity and the transmission of information that can corrupt people.

The Act had little impact on sports betting and online gambling for its first two decades of existence, but that is no longer the case. In April 2023, the central government notified amendments to the rules made under that Act to regulate “online real money games,” defined there as any “online game where a user makes a deposit in cash or kind with the expectation of earning winnings on that deposit.”

Under those rules, India’s central government did not regulate online sports betting directly on a day-to-day basis. It delegated that responsibility instead to “self-regulatory bodies” designated by the government and comprised of online betting operators.

The responsibilities of those bodies were to oversee their members and craft rules aimed at four overarching goals:

• Ensure that online betting and gambling operators offer games that are “not against the interests of the sovereignty and integrity of India, security of the State, friendly relations with foreign States and public order”

• Establish safeguards against customer harm, self-harm, and psychological harm

• Establish measures to safeguard children, provide means for parental and access control, and classify games through an age-rating mechanism

• Establish measures to protect against gambling addiction and promote responsible gambling

Each body had to be comprised of online betting operators and headed by industry experts and specialists in other fields such as gambling addiction, and each board had to include at least one representative of online betting customers.

On paper the amendments gave self-regulatory bodies significant autonomy to craft and enforce the rules, with the government reserving the right to suspend or revoke any body that failed to oversee its members. That model has been overtaken by the 2025 Act's ban on all real-money games.

How the Payment and Settlement Systems Act, 2007 Impacts Online Betting in India

The Payment and Settlement Systems Act, 2007 is another federal law with indirect implications for online gambling. The Act gives the Reserve Bank of India full power to regulate electronic payments throughout India. The act provides broad powers to the central bank, allowing it to stop electronic payments as it sees fit. In addition, payment processors can be inspected without warrants and forced to share customers’ financial data with the government.

In other words, the act gives the central government sweeping powers over the types of payment methods that bettors can use to fund their online betting accounts. The Act has caused some problems for credit and debit card deposits, but the position is now a prohibition rather than an inconvenience: the 2025 Act prohibits facilitating financial transactions for online money gaming, so there is no lawful way to fund an online betting account from India.

India Sports Betting Laws by State

India’s constitution grants each state broad authority over the regulation of online betting and in-person gambling. Most states have declined to authorize online sports betting and gambling but several have passed laws to regulate the industry. In addition, Goa, Daman, and Sikkim allow brick-and-mortar casinos.

Sikkim Online Betting

Sikkim opened the doors to online gambling with the passage of the Sikkim Online Gaming (Regulation) Act of 2008 and followed that up with the Sikkim Online Gaming (Regulation) Rules of 2009 to make the act operational. These laws paved the way for legal betting sites in India by allowing operators to apply for licenses to offer games of chance and sports wagering for real money.

Initially, lawmakers sought to give online betting sites in India the freedom to accept customers nationwide. This law would have essentially brought online gambling to the entire nation. However, that aspect of the law was later struck down after the government ruled that Sikkim could only offer online gambling to customers located within the state.

The gaming rules implemented in 2009 set a tax rate of 1% of gross gaming yield, set a minimum participation age of 18, set advertising standards, and clarified what is expected of licensed operators to ensure fair games for players. Just some of the requirements include:

• Providing an adequate means for generating truly random results

• Clearly explaining to players the house advantage of each game

• Maintaining records relating to player identities, player balances, games played, and times played

Later, the state government passed the Sikkim Online Gaming (Regulations) Amendment Bill 2015. This bill authorized operators to offer real money sports betting, poker, and casino games in betting shops across Sikkim through “intranet gaming terminals.” Two established gaming operators in the state quickly got to work and opened roughly 50 betting shops in different locations.

India’s first full-fledged sports betting site opened in 2016. State authorities authorized M88.com to offer real money sports bets to customers physically located in Sikkim, a state permission that the central ban on real-money online games has since overridden. Offshore sites still accept customers from all parts of India, but M88 was the first to acquire an official Sikkim online betting license.

Nagaland Online Betting

Nagaland began addressing online gaming with a bill passed by the legislative assembly in 2016. This bill addresses “games of skill” and allows licensed operators to offer them, including fantasy sports, for real money online.

The Nagaland Prohibition of Gambling and Promotion of Games of Skill Bill, 2015 uses a broad definition of “game of skill” to allow operators to offer a wide variety of games. The bill has since been implemented, but it could face challenges as India’s Supreme Court has yet to issue clear decisions regarding which games may be legally defined as games of skill. The outcome of pending court decisions will significantly impact the bill.

Additionally, the Nagaland bill seeks to allow locally-licensed operators to accept customers across India. This approach is similar to what Sikkim attempted to do when it passed its online gambling legislation. Lawmakers in Sikkim later had to amend the bill to keep all online gaming activities restricted to state residents. Presumably, opponents could challenge the Nagaland bill on the same grounds that resulted in the Sikkim bill being amended.

Nagaland authorities issued the first licenses under the regime in 2016, and the early licensees were skill-gaming operators rather than sportsbooks.

What the Future Holds for Indian Online Betting Sites

India is now a prohibited online gambling market rather than an untapped one, though citizens continue to wager whether it is legal or not: offshore betting and gambling platforms continue to expand despite India’s ban on real-money gaming, while the state licensing experiments in Sikkim and Nagaland have been overtaken by the central ban.

Are There Consequences for Betting Online in India?

Betting online from India is now unlawful rather than unregulated, so it is no longer right to say there are no legal risks for individual gamblers; what can be said is that enforcement so far has fallen on operators, platforms and payment channels rather than on players. There have not been any reported incidents of individual fans being prosecuted for placing a bet online.

In the states that have passed their own laws banning all forms of online gambling, enforcement appears to focus primarily on operators and organised betting rackets rather than on individual bettors.