The Sports Ministry of India looks forward to legalise online sports betting in the country

The Sports Ministry of India is planning to make online sports betting legal in the country in the next 2 years. The committee has already begun the process of chalking out a few rules in order to legalise the process. The Indian government might stretch out the United Kingdom in order to seek some help as the UK has the most effective laws when it comes to gambling. Stakeholders in the government are already being consulted by the ministry.

“The UK has one of the most effective gambling laws. We hope to understand their system and see if it is possible to introduce it in India,” said a ministry official.

“The UK has overcome this (poor funding) through lottery and online betting. The department is preparing an MoU with the UK and the aspect of betting will be included therein in order to understand the mechanism and evolve a view on the possibility of its introduction in India,” the ministry said in its presentation.

According to an official of the Sports Ministry, the government was apprehensive about the consequences of the step. “However, it can be beneficial to the economy as well as sports overall. We are looking at the best international practices in sports integrity and ethics framework,” the official said.

Betting has emerged to be a socio-political issue in the country due to recent match-fixing and spot-fixing controversies that shook the cricket world. The matter of legalising betting was taken into account seriously when Chief Justice of India RM Lodha pushed it in his report last year asking for betting to be made legal in cricket. “As far as betting alone is concerned, many of the respondents before the Committee were of the view that it would serve both the game and economy if it were legalised as has been done in the United Kingdom,” Lodha stated in his report.