Govt releases draft rules for regulating and promoting online games

The Centre has announced the draft of the Promotion and Regulation of Online Gaming Rules, 2025, proposing a national register of all online social games, e-sports, and online money games with a mandatory registration of all companies and persons that offer such games in India. The national registry for all such games, as well as the registration of such persons and companies, will be done by the Online Gaming Authority of India (OGAI), a new regulatory body for online social games and e-sports in the country.

The proposed online gaming authority will have a chairperson and five other members from various government ministries. It would be empowered to determine if a game is an “online money game”, register games, issue directions and impose penalties.

The draft rules will operationalize the Promotion and Regulation of Online Gaming Act, 2025, which prohibits all forms of online money games such as poker and fantasy sports, while only allowing “online social games” and e-sports. The draft rules propose to make violations a non-bailable offence and hold the entire company staff liable for facilitating any breach.

The law has received Presidential assent in August, and was drafted amid security concerns over online gaming platforms and their potential societal harm. The regulator will have the power to adjudge whether any “material change” has been made to a game it has registered, such as a shift in its revenue model that makes it an online money game. If such a violation is found, its registration certificate could be canceled.

The draft rules call for the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting to issue codes of practice or guidelines regarding the categorization of online social games for recreational, educational, skill development, or such other purposes.