5 Legal Facts To Know About Gambling In India

Gambling is strictly regulated in many regions of the world, but it's also largely neglected by as many other regions. From a general overview, it's easy to see that there's still a lot of confusion about gambling and before you book a flight to go playing in a foreign casino, make sure you know more about it.

India – A Great Destination For A Great Vacation

For example, many foreign tourists visit India every year. India is actually a pretty affordable destination, it offers plenty of majestic wild nature and beautiful landscapes, it's rich in history, old architecture, and it's pleased with wonderful shores, as well. It seems that many tourists want to experience extreme entertainment and nightlife when in India and they often look for a casino where they can go and spend the entire nighttime playing roulette or poker.

Now, the main problem arises when the tourists can't understand the local gambling regulation and laws. So, they decide to give it up and look for an online casino. One of the first options is to get no deposit bonus codes to use to play games for free. This way, you won't have to forcibly open an account on that casino site. You can just get the no deposit bonus and start trying the free demo games. Of course, if you want to play for real money, you'll have to create your account and deposit some money.

But if you still want to try local gambling, prepare to face a pretty complicated situation with several different regulations basing on the specific game and state of India where you are.

Keep In Mind These Law Facts

Before you go to a land-based gambling facility, you should first learn something about the current Indian gambling situation. Broadly speaking, gambling is apparently strictly regulated although in certain states the regulations don't look too severe.

Anyway, we think that you should take a pen and a paper to make notes of the following basic law facts about gambling in India:

1. Slots, roulette, and blackjack These three basic casino games (and all their variants and new forms that might emerge over time) are regulated both in the digital form and in land-based form. However, the entities that regulate these games vary. In short terms, digital gambling is regulated by Gaming Enactments. According to this authority, online casino playing is treated as a gambling activity and, therefore, it's forbidden in India. The Indian states of Sikkim, Daman and Diu, and Goa regulate land-based casinos. In particular, in the state of Daman and Diu, the authority that regulates it is the Director of Tourism.

1. Poker Poker is considered a game of skill. In India, only the state of Nagaland regulates such games, including poker. In all the other states, poker is the topic of an unsolved debate about whether it's a skill game or not. From its nature and definition, the gambling laws may change. Sometimes, poker is allowed in the digital form but it's forbidden in the physical form.
2. Bingo In digital form, bingo may look like a lottery. It all depends on the exact format of the game and its definition. In general, bingo is defined as a game of chance which makes the authority forbid it all across India. But when bingo falls within the definition of a lottery (and not a game of chance), it is allowed. As you can see, it's not easy to see when and how bingo is forbidden or not.
3. Sports betting Many Indians are discovering the pleasure and fun to bet online. While the question about sports betting being a game of skill or of chance is being discussed by the Supreme Court of India, the state of Sikkim allows sports betting only under a specific license and through the intranet of the state.
4. Social gaming As long as you play gambling games for money, you have to observe the above-mentioned legal restrictions. However, if you want to play social gaming (basically, it refers to the same games but without prizes in money or valuable items), you can do it freely as no regulation exists for such games. The same concept is applied to skills games and competitions as long as there's no element of chance. The operators don't need any license and you can play as much as you want.

As you can see, gambling in India still looks a lot complicated. Although regulatory restrictions do exist, it seems that supervision is pretty poor. If you are visiting India as a tourist, you'd better not run any risk and choose safe entertainment online.