Every year when a new season of the Indian Premier League begins, it also creates more buzz in the fantasy sports industry. Over the past few years, the industry has seen massive growth, and especially in India the fantasy sports industry has a huge base of 16 crore people as their users and 200+ Indian operator companies. It has created a revolution in the gaming industry.
For the IPL 2023 season, market research firm Redseer Strategy Consultants has predicted that the fantasy sports industry is expected to grow in the range of 30-35% to ₹2,900-3,100 crore. Low internet costs and increasing sales of smartphones have played an essential role in pushing the accessibility of fantasy sports.
With such a huge fan base, this platform has been at constant odds with the court. There have been several cases where the court has sent notice to people for promoting such apps even celebrity cricket player Virat Kohli and former BCCI President Sourav Ganguly wasn’t spared.
The real question is whether these apps are even legal in India or not. There have been cases in the court where people have argued that fantasy sports apps are just a tool for betting or gambling, which is illegal in India.
What does the law say?
According to Article 19(1)(g) of the Indian Constitution, a game of skill is where players use their expertise, talent, knowledge, and strategies to analyse, think, and develop techniques to win and that is a legal activity.
Winning is only possible when expert knowledge and judgement are applied with proper analysis and not just luck. As a result, fantasy cricket comes under the scope of a game of skill where players use their expertise and knowledge of sports to create fantasy teams.
Upon observation and due inspection by the court, Dream 11 was considered to harbour the nature of a ‘game of skill’ and therefore was deemed legitimate.
While dismissing the offences of betting and gambling the Rajasthan high court also termed fantasy sports as a ‘game of skill’
In August 2021, the Supreme Court also upheld the legality of fantasy sports stating it requires considerable skill and judgment.
Game of Skill vs Game of Chance:
Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (Meit) has also acknowledged the difference between the ‘game of skill’ and the ‘game of chance.’ When the outcome of the game is strongly determined by skill, then it is a game of skill, while when the outcome is decided strongly by chance, it is a game of chance.
Betting means putting money purely on the bases of the happening or non-happening of an event that hardly requires any skill and earning a profit on the happening of the event. There is no competition involved.
On the other hand, fantasy games are a game of skill and require the participant to select a team of players. The selection of a player requires analysis and judgement concerning his past performance, pitch conditions and ability to perform against the opponent team etc. Whereas betting is all about chance and not at all dependent on that much of skills or knowledge.
Thus, now we know why fantasy sports are legal in India and do not fall under the Public Gambling Act, of 1867. As per the Federation of Indian Fantasy Sports (FIFS) – the country’s first of its kind and only self-regulatory Sports Gaming industry body, ‘‘games of skill are excluded from the definition of most gambling legislations and therefore are legal to play”,
Written by Vaishnavi Goel, 6th semester, Punjab School of Law, Punjabi University , Patiala
