Madhya Pradesh Forms Task Force To Regulate Online Gaming

The Madhya Pradesh government on Friday (December 16) announced the constitution of a high-level task force that will make recommendations to regulate the online gaming space in the state.

The panel will examine technical and legal aspects related to the online gambling and gaming industry and will, accordingly, suggest new changes. 

“The task force has been constituted to examine various judicial precedents, legal situations and technical aspects related to prevention and controlling online gambling and gaming and make recommendations to the state government,” an official told the news agency PTI. 

Headed by the state chief secretary, the task force will also comprise other senior officials such as additional chief secretary of the home department, principal secretary in the department of law and legislative affairs and the director of public prosecution.

Besides, the panel will include additional director general of Police (CID), additional director general of Police (MP Bhawan), managing director of the state electronics development corporation and secretary in the home department. 

The constitution of the task force comes nearly a month after Madhya Pradesh Home Minister Narottam Mishra said that the state government was working on bringing a law to regulate the online gaming space.

The move has largely been attributed to the growing incidents of addiction and crimes involving online gamers. 

Growing Demand For Regulations

The announcement comes nearly a year after the death of an 11-year old boy in Bhopal rocked the state after it emerged that the victim allegedly hanged himself over his addiction to an online game. 

Since then, multiple such incidents have come to light that have prompted a public outcry. Earlier this year, a teenager allegedly shot his mother for stopping him from playing games. In another case, a man allegedly lost INR 4.8 Lakh after his minor son was cheated online while playing mobile games. 

Matters involving online gambling have been much worse. Many have committed suicide while many others have been left in penury after losing their life savings. Experts have also surmised that there is a 30%-40% uptick in incidents of aggressive behaviour involving children addicted to online games. 

With socio-economic and financial aspects of the public on line, many state governments such as Tamil Nadu have promulgated laws to essentially ban online gambling, while similar bids by states such as Karnataka have been met with resistance, with advocacy groups dragging the state governments to courts. 

Such has been the furore that the matter recently also echoed in the Parliament. Minister of State (MoS) for Electronics and Information Technology Rajeev Chandrasekhar recently informed the Parliament that the Centre has no plans to limit the time spent playing online games. 

However, he added that the government was well aware of the possible risks associated with online games, including ‘abetting violence, addiction, and consequential financial loss.’

Despite these, the online gaming space has been growing at a fast pace in the country. The surge in smartphone and internet penetration has led to a boom in the online gaming space. This has led to emergence of many unicorns like Dream11, Games24x7 and Mobile Premier League which are catering to the growing demand of online gamers.

With the number of online gamers in India expected to soar to 657 Mn mark by 2025, the online gaming space continues to be a lucrative proposition and is expected to reach a market size of $5 Bn by 2025.