Preliminary

Chapter I sets the groundwork for the Online Gaming Bill 2025. Section 1 states the short title, territorial extent (all of India, with express application to services offered inside India or operated from outside India), and commencement by notification. Section 2 defines the core terms that recur throughout the Act so that later obligations and prohibitions are unambiguous. Key definitions include: (i) “advertisement” (linked to the Consumer Protection Act, 2019), (ii) “Authority” (the regulator constituted/designated under Section 8), (iii) “e-sport”, described as organised competitive, rules-based multiplayer play recognised under the National Sports Governance Act, 2025 and registered with the Authority/agency; (iv) “online money game”, broadly covering any online game—skill, chance or hybrid—played by paying fees/deposits or other stakes with an expectation of monetary or other enrichment, while expressly excluding e-sports; (v) “online money gaming service”, i.e., the service for entering/playing an online money game; and (vi) “online social game”, meant for recreation/education that does not involve staking money/other stakes and may allow access/participation charges that are not wagers. In practice, these definitions settle long-disputed boundaries (skill vs chance, e-sports vs money gaming) and prepare the ground for promotion of e-sports/social games and a prohibition regime for money gaming that follows in later chapters.