In what countries are online gambling legal?

What are the online gambling laws in India and USA respectively? What is and what is not considered legal in both countries?

• Answer:

  India is an exciting Internet gaming market. It's huge, so there's great opportunity, and very different in terms of its emphasis on sports betting compared to North America. It also has an interesting legal landscape. India has a federal system that's conceptually similar to Canada and the United States. There is a federal prohibition on gambling that is not predominantly a game of skill under the Public Gambling Act of 1867. (The predominance test - or 'dominant element' test - was effectively adopted by the Supreme Court of India in 1996 in K.R. Lakshmanan v. State of Tamil Nadu.) However, the states in India have constitutional authority to legislate in gaming and betting matters, so the federal prohibition does not prevent individual states from enacting legislation to allow gambling. This has been done, for example, in Goa, one of the smaller states, which has a number of commercial land-based casinos. On the Internet gaming side, my understanding is that the national government takes the view that the Public Gambling Act and other laws are sufficient to prohibit Internet gaming from being offered to Indian residents, whether from outside of the country or in India itself. Any analysis of the Internet gaming situation in india should also take into account foreign exchange laws and the Information Technology Act 2000, the latter of which punishes anyone publishing or transmitting or causing to be published or transmitted in electronic form "any material which is lascivious or appeals to the prurient interest" or having the effect of "deprav[ing] and corrupt[ing] persons." This is such a broad definition that offering online interactive gaming could be subject to sanction under the ITA. Another small state, Sikkim, is in the process of issuing online gaming and betting licences to several operators. Sikkim has already enacted online gambling legislation and accompanying regulations. This is particularly intriguing. The legislation says that it "extends to the whole of Sikkim." I'm not sure it's clear that operators under Sikkim's regime will be able to take bets and offer games to people in other states in India, but I also understand that operators are taking the posiiton that they will be able to take action from other states and won't be limited to Sikkim. It will be interesting to see how the situation in Sikkim plays out, both in terms of it developing its own interactive gaming industry and in how its operators market and operate in the rest of India (if not internationally).