Kavitha, a woman from Nellore, Andhra Pradesh, reportedly committed suicide by consuming pesticides after losing Rs 2.5 lakh to fraudsters while playing online games. According to reports, Kavitha added the money to her online gaming wallet using her mobile phone in hopes to earn quick money.

She got scammed, where the scammers swooped money out of her account. After losing the money, she immediately informed her father about the incident and filed a complaint to the police. The police while investigating the matter reported that the woman had borrowed this money from her friends and family.

Not able to deal with the mental trauma after losing people’s money, Kavitha consumed pesticides on June 15. She was rushed to hospital by her family, where she died on Tuesday while undergoing treatment.

Scams and frauds in online gaming have taken a toll on people’s lives countless times, and the incident from Nellore is just another example of how people should keep a distance from these platforms and always check the legitimacy of any gaming platform before signing up, or be ready to lose money and private information by signing up on illegal and unregulated platforms.

Several other suicide cases have previously occurred in the past, multiple times when people either do not set a limit on what they spend or straight up use illegal operators and get scammed. In another recent suicide case, a man in Chhatrapati Sambhaji Nagar, Maharashtra committed suicide after losing Rs 3.5 lakh playing online rummy.

While the government takes a lot of time to implement necessary regulations, it is citizens’ duty to follow safe and precautionary measures. The UK government has recently revised their rules on gambling in the country, setting a limit on people’s weekly and monthly spendings.

While gambling is not legal in India, a similar approach can also be taken for these online games. The new online gaming rules do promise more safety to gamers, but they are yet to be implemented countrywide.