[ad_1]
There is a saying that sometimes the end justifies the means. Well, there are also cases when the means don’t serve the end at all. A political battle supposed to fight gambling-related problems ends up doing nothing about it, but makes the legitimate gaming industry lose business and get busy in costly court action.
Facing Three Years of Jail Time for Doing Legitimate Business
Harsh Jain and Bhavit Sheth, Dream11 co-founders and owners, are successful people by anyone’s criteria – the company they created became India’s first gaming unicorn, bagged the IPL sponsorship title and has been continuously paving the way for the country’s online fantasy sports industry to follow. Nevertheless, the threat of spending three years in prison hovered over Harsh and Bhavit for many months while we all waited for the Karnataka High Court to pronounce its judgment on the constitutional validity of the now annulled blanket ban on gaming in the state.
Some may say the threat was not real, as the only thing Harsh and Bhavit did was obey the Union Constitution and follow orders of the Supreme Court, and the Karnataka Police (Amendment) Bill of 2021 had no chance to survive High Court scrutiny anyway. However, having pending criminal charges for alleged deeds punishable by years of jail time cannot be considered not serious.
The case against the gaming business duo was finally dismissed on March 4, a couple of weeks after the Karnataka HC declared the prohibition sections of the Amendment Bill void because the state didn’t have the jurisdiction to bracket games of skill and games of chance together .
The Means that Did Not Serve the End
The declared intention behind adopting the Amendment was to protect the public from the risks associated with online betting and gambling. This is a valid argument as media reports about ruined lives, destroyed families and even suicides due to heavy debts and gamig addictions show that such activities should not be left unchecked. However, the gaming bans only caused trouble and losses to legitimate businesses while doing nothing to prevent or even address problem gaming.
“We all know that an alcoholic or drug addict won’t stop simply due to alcohol or drugs being illegal. Instead, they might seek out alternatives, many of which lead them further down the addictive rabbit hole, into a world of crime, or worse,” writes Felicia Wijkander, Chief Editor of SevenJackpotsthe biggest Indian casino comparison platform.
The same thing is valid for gambling addictions or even for regular gaming enthusiasts. A sports fan who loves the thrill of betting small amounts on his favorite matches, if unable to find a safe and legal online cricket satta bazar option, is quite likely to make use of some alternative underground sportsbook. This could be a no big deal for him, but for someone who is prone to addictions and has frail finances, black market betting can bring a high risk of troubles and ruin.
The police First Information Report (FIR) was registered against Harsh and Bhavit on October 8, 2021, just three days after the Karnataka Police Act Amendment came into force and had them spend a lot of money and time on lawyers and court action. Subsequently, Dream11 suspended offering games to residents of Karnataka losing a significant chunk of its business.
A number of other legitimate gaming businesses geo-blocked their platforms in the state even earlier and started shedding finances to fund the legal battle against the unconstitutional blanket ban in court. A similar scenario to the ones that had previously unfolded in Tamil Nadu and Kerala, where prohibitions on online gaming were struck down by the respective High Courts as contrary to the Union Constitution.
Responsible Politicians are Easy to Tell
In the end, the only end that these prohibitions did serve was to bring short-lived political dividends to officials who gave easy promises they would make gambling-related problems disappear for good by prohibiting all gaming. As we have seen, just going forward and passing outright bans on all online games disregarding the Constitution and the laws of the country makes little sense. On the other hand, politicians that are really concerned about minimizing addictions and failed lives caused by gaming behave quite differently.
Such responsible statesmen see that India urgently needs to stop the pointless political acrobatics with ineffective blanket bans. They say that the need of the hour for the country is to move on to implement modern-day regulation on gaming that will bring down the social costs through a comprehensive array of responsible gaming mechanisms, while promoting economic growth, job creation and revenue collection.
“A Gaming Authority at the central government should be created while various forms of self-regulation are encouraged for the industry. This authority could be made responsible for the online gaming industry, monitoring its operations, preventing societal issues, suitably classifying games of skill or chance, overseeing consumer protection, and combatting illegality and crime,” writes one such statesman, Sushil Kumar Modi, a Rajya Sabha member and senior BJP leader.
[ad_2]
Source link
