The Awaited Draft Bill Met with Disappointed and Suspicion
India’s gaming industry greeted with applause the announcement by Rajasthan Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot made during his budget speech on February 23 this year that the state is planning to regulate online skill gaming rather than ban it. However, now that the draft of the Rajasthan Virtual Online Sports (Regulation) Bill, 2022, was finally made available, instead of being met with enthusiasm, it caused industry stakeholders to raise eyebrows in disappointment and suspicion.
One of the major concerns with the current text of the draft is that it might have been designed to give too much power in the hands of a selected few. Chapter 3 of the bill, which envisages the rules for administration and regulation of online virtual sports (VOS), grants a significant role to private self-regulatory bodies recognized by competent courts or by the Rajasthan Virtual Sports Commission.
Such private organizations will be vested with the authority "to issue directions or orders for compliance with the code of ethics and governance” and "to evaluate, certify and approve a format," which could easily lead to conflict of interest or confusion.
The Federation of Indian Fantasy Sports (FIFS), for example, recently lost a great deal of its credibility and influence when three of its platinum members - Mobile Premier League (MPL), My11Circle and MyTeam11 left it, followed by a number of the organization’s senior officials. As FIFS was founded by the largest player in the online fantasy sports industry - Dream11, many fear that if it gets into a position of power, a lot of its decision-making process would be biased.
"It will be ridiculous that a body (FIFS) that used to be a registered subsidiary of the industry leader is now going to be imposing fines on other competitors and monitoring licenses," a senior official of a top-tier multi-gaming company expressed the industry’s concerns.
The Bill Covers Only a Small Portion of the Skill Gaming Genre Spectrum
The currently existing version of the Rajasthan Virtual Online Sports (Regulation) Bill provides for a licensing procedure on all entities and persons offering, organizing and exhibiting VOS in the state. As per the draft, VOS include only specific games such as eSport competitions, fantasy sports, and derivative formats approved by courts, self-regulatory bodies or the competent authority. Thus, the recently presented bill covers only a small portion of the genre spectrum of games of skill.
This comes despite the fact that the initial intentions, as declared by CM Gehlot during his budget speech at the Rajasthan Legislative Assembly, were for the state to regulate all modes of skill gaming leaving chance gaming operators ranging from online casinos to platforms offering free cricket betting tips within the ambit of the Rajasthan Public Gambling Ordinance, 1949, and the Indian Public Gaming Act, 1867.
"The draft Rajasthan Virtual Online Sports (Regulation) Bill, 2022 leaves a lot to be desired. It is unclear why the state government has decided to regulate only fantasy sports and esports while leaving out other skill-based games like rummy, poker etc," comments Jay Sayta, a tech and gaming lawyer.
Bracketing eSports together with Online Fantasy Sports Also Raises Eyebrows
The state of Rajasthan holds between 15 to 20 percent of the nation’s online fantasy sports business, and perhaps this is the reason why the draft VOS regulation bill seems tailored to the preferences of fantasy platforms. At the same time, bracketing eSports together with the fantasy genre is another aspect of the bill that causes industry stakeholders to raise their eyebrows.
Some of the main distinctions that separate fantasy sports and other real money gaming modes from eSports is that the former require money to be played and gamers do not compete against other gamers. Whereas in eSports, gamers play against each other, individually or in teams, and no money is required to participate, even though a number of betting sites in India offer wagering on eSport tournaments.
“Esports and fantasy gaming are completely different, unrelated activities. Fantasy sports do not involve participating in a competitive sport format. Unlike fantasy sports, esports depends completely on the skill of the players,” nCore Games founder Vishal Gondal states.
According to Gagan Narang, founding member of the Federation of Electric Sports Association India (FEAI), eSports must be clearly separated from all other gaming genres by way of ‘law’, ‘definition’, ‘skill orientation’ and ‘operations’.
“Esports is an independent universe in all four aspects and we at the FEAI are very clear to make esports an athlete-led dialogue, where players, aspiring to be professionals in esports, are given precedence above all. This unique factor about esports segregates it from the rest of the gaming universe,” Narang says.
"We are still studying the proposed bill and will be reaching out to the Government of Rajasthan with our suggestions. Our preliminary view is that the bill in its current form may have some concerns from the perspective of casual games of skill which has been recognised by the Supreme Court of India as well as several High Courts. However, we are confident that the Rajasthan government will accommodate our concerns and the final law will be consistent with the law of the land as laid down by the courts," Winzo’s Saumya Singh Rathore shares his overall comments on the proposed draft bill.
