Governor RN Ravi met representatives of the E-Gaming Federation (EGF) on December 5, 2022, at Chennai’s Raj Bhavan as the Tamil Nadu (TN) government awaits his approval of the Bill outlawing online gambling and regulating online gaming.
The Raj Bhavan did not issue a formal press release announcing the Governor’s meeting with the federation representatives or what the meeting agenda was.
The Tamil Nadu Prohibition of Online Gambling and Regulation of Online Games Bill, 2022 was passed by the state assembly on October 19, 2022 while the ordinance was approved by the Governor on October 1, 2022. It lapsed on November 27 and the Governor is yet to approve the Bill.
The team that met with the Governor included Devhuti Bakshi, Director, Public Policy of EGF, Sanjiv Saddy, Chief Corporate Affairs, Junglee Games, Akshay Gupta, Associate Director, Public Policy, Games 24×7, Sameer Chugh, Chief Legal Officer of Games 24×7 and a few others from the E-gaming industry.
According to The News Minute (TNM), an officer in the Public Relations office spoke to them confirming the meeting at Raj Bhavan but did not disclose any details.
The representatives of EGF also refused to speak about the meeting and referred to its details as “confidential”. When speaking to the Chief Executive Officer of EGF, Sameer Barde, TNM got confirmation that the discussion was regarding the Bill.
Previously, EGF had announced that they will be challenging the ordinance passed by the TN government banning online gambling.
To discuss the concerns highlighted by the Governor regarding the Bill, the Law Minister, S. Regupathy, and secretaries from the Home and Law Departments met with the Governor on December 1 at Raj Bhavan. After the meeting, the Law Minister spoke with the media and stated that the Governor was still considering the Bill and would only give his assent once any remaining questions had been answered.
The Tamil Nadu government had formed a committee under the leadership of retired Madras High Court Justice K Chandru to investigate the negative consequences and impact of online gambling. On June 27, 2022, the committee sent the Chief Minister its report, and on September 26, the state cabinet took up the report for consideration. After the committee’s recommendations, the government of Tamil Nadu decided to ban online gambling and regulate online gaming.
The 71-page report strongly recommended that the government pass new online gaming legislation. The Tamil Nadu government decided to introduce an ordinance that would prohibit online gambling and regulate online gaming after taking all suggestions into account.
After more than 24 people losing their lives and large sums of money due to online gambling, political parties asked the government to step in and take actions against online rummy.