India’s Supreme Court rejects 10 review petitions on state online gaming bans

India's Supreme Court has dismissed 10 review petitions, led by Junglee Games India, against its May ruling that Tamil Nadu and Karnataka may ban online games played for stakes. Justices J.B. Pardiwala and R. Mahadevan rejected the petitions on 15 October without an open-court hearing, leaving the May judgment in place.

The review requests targeted the 27 May ruling. In that judgment, the court reversed High Court orders that had invalidated Tamil Nadu's and Karnataka's curbs on paid online gaming. The May bench also held that labelling a game as skill-based does not, on its own, remove it from state prohibition when stakes are at play.

According to The Economic Times, the bench reviewed the papers filed and the accompanying records, then concluded there was no ground to grant the pleas. Rejecting the requests preserved the May ruling. It did not bring back the safeguards that operators had won in the High Court.

Among the companies supporting the High Court rulings were Junglee Games, Play Games24x7 and Head Digital Works. Industry associations likewise backed those decisions, which shielded paid online skill games. The industry's case rested on treating skill and chance games under separate rules when money is bet. The Supreme Court rejected that position in May, pointing to addiction and law and order concerns.

With this outcome, the review stage closes in these matters. A curative petition remains available to the petitioners as a way to seek relief. The source notes that such a petition is reserved for exceptional situations involving abuse of the judicial process, and it exists to remedy a grave miscarriage of justice. Its bar is set higher than that of an ordinary legal challenge.