Tamil Nadu ruling party DMK unveiled its manifesto for 2024 Lok Sabha elections and the party has promised a national level ban playing online games for stakes. The DMK Party is expected to contest 21 of the 40 seats in Tamil Nadu (including Puducherry) while remaining seats will be contested by Congress and other parties of the INDIA group.

Tamil Nadu has twice tried to implement a ban law to prohibit online gaming for stakes – once by AIDMK regime and again during the DMK regime. On both the occasions the Madras High Court has struck down these laws as unconstitutional and appeals against the same are currently pending before the Supreme Court.

Ever since, the DMK has been conveying that a national level law would be appropriate to deal with online money gaming. The manifesto text read as follows:

“A law will be enacted to ban online gambling; under this law, providers of online games will not be able to offer online gambling services, and any online game requiring money or other stakes will not be allowed, as already insisted by DMK to the Union government.”

The DMK Party claims to have already sought central government’s intervention to legislate a law at national level. The elections in Tamil Nadu will be held in the first phase on April 19.

So far, Andhra Pradesh, Telangana, Karnataka, Tamil Nadu have enacted laws prohibiting online gaming for stakes – all of which are challenged before the High Courts while Chattisgarh has enacted a law to prohibit online gambling.

In a related development, the Election Commission has made public the details of electoral bonds purchasers and redeeming party details. As per the data, Lottery King Santiago Martin owned Future Gaming donated Rs. 509 crore to DMK.