Madhya Pradesh High Court Issues Notice To Centre On Online Fantasy Gaming

Bhopal (Madhya Pradesh): The principal bench of the Jabalpur high court on Wednesday issued notice to the union government on online fantasy gaming.

Hearing a petition filed by Clubboom11 Sports and Entertainment Pvt Ltd challenging the constitutional validity of the Promotion and Regulation of Online Gaming Act, 2025, a division bench of chief justice Sanjeev Sachdeva and justice Vinay Saraf issued notice to the Union of India and directed it to file its counter-affidavit within four weeks.

Senior advocate Gopal Jain, appearing for the petitioner, argued that the law suffered from constitutional infirmities in so far as it applied to fantasy sports. He submitted that fantasy sports had repeatedly been recognised by the Supreme Court and several high courts as games of skill and therefore enjoyed constitutional protection.

Jain also pointed out that the central government itself, through the Information Technology Rules, had earlier categorised fantasy sports as permissible real-money games.

Solicitor general Tushar Mehta, appearing for the Union government, opposed the plea. He informed the court that similar petitions were already pending before the Karnataka and Delhi high courts and that the Centre was actively considering filing a transfer petition so that all challenges to the Act could be heard together, either in one high court or directly before the Supreme Court.

He also clarified that the legislation did not prohibit all forms of online gaming but only those involving monetary returns, which he described as a form of betting.