The Madras High Court on Thursday, November 9, 2023 refused to strike down the Tamil Nadu Prohibition of Online Gambling and Regulation of Online Games Act, 2022 in its entirety but ruled that it would apply only to “games of chance” and not to games of skill such as rummy and poker.

First Division Bench of Chief Justice Sanjay V. Gangapurwala and Justice P.D. Audikesavalu partly allowed a batch of writ petitions filed by All India Gaming Federation and a host of individual online gaming companies challenging the constitutional validity of the law.

“The prayer to declare the entire Act as ultravires the Constitution is negated. However, the schedule of the Act including the games of rummy and poker are set aside. Section 2(l)(4) of the Act may be read as restricted to games of chance and not involving games of skill namely rummy and poker,” the Bench said.

After reading out the operative portion of the order in open court, the Chief Justice told the counsel on both sides that his Bench had also observed that the State government could make regulations with respect to the time and age of the players of the online games.