Legalising betting in India

The Law Commission of India has recommended that betting on sports be legitimised, taking it away from the grip of illegal, underworld-linked operators and making it legal but heavily regulated. This recommendation stems from the 2013 IPL spot-fixing and betting scandal, following which the Lodha Committee, tasked with reforming the operations of the Indian cricket board, had suggested that betting on sports be legalised in the country. “With only (betting on) horse racing legally permissible in India, those interested in betting have gone underground, with illegal bookies managing affairs,” the committee report had noted.

The Law Commission has stated that since “it is not possible to prevent these activities (illegal betting) completely, effectively regulating them remains the only viable option”. It has also recommended stringent regulatory measures such as making it mandatory for all transactions to be cashless and linked to the bettor’s PAN and Aadhaar cards. It has recommended that gambling and betting “should be offered only by Indian licensed operators from India” and, interestingly, money staked should be proportionate to a bettor’s income — in other words, only higher income groups would be allowed to bet on higher stakes.

According to various estimates, the illegal betting market in India could be worth up to Rs 9.6 lakh crore, most of it cricket-specific. Despite the efforts of the law-enforcement agencies and scores of arrests made every year, illegal betting continues to flourish. In this scenario, legalising betting seems to be a pragmatic solution, though it may not necessarily stamp out illegal betting — those flush with black money could continue to operate through illegal betting and hawala syndicates. Legalising betting will almost certainly lead to one undesirable result: It will provide sanction to an activity that is highly discouraged in Indian society, and make betting accessible to individuals who earlier had no access to the illegal betting syndicates. Addiction can be a very serious problem, too. A look at the United Kingdom is instructive: Last year, its betting industry regulator warned that over two million people in the UK were “either problem gamblers or at risk of addiction”. A large number of Indians too could become susceptible to these problems. Sadly, the issue of betting has no easy or right answer and being pragmatic may be the only way out.