A Delhi court has ruled that online games that involve physical money are illegal and websites hosting these games cannot be offered protection under the constitution, reports PTI (via Asian Age). In addition, the court also added that banks have the option to deny normal services to such websites, and payment gateways for gambling are blocked by RBI as per IT (Information Technology) Rules of 2011. This judgement was announced following a petition filed by Anuj Gupta, Director of Gaussian Network, a Delhi-based Internet startup company, on Feb 17, 2012. According to the petition filing, Gaussian Network was planning to launch a social gaming website which includes betting or gambling and had inked an agreement with Monica Lakhanpal, who had agreed to invest Rs 5 lakhs into the company. However, before launching the website, the company wanted to make sure that it was not violating any law and had therefore sought the Court's opinion. Betting on Skill-based games Illegal? What's worth noting though is that the website was planning to offer betting on skill based games like Chess, Billiards, Bridge and Snooker besides the traditional gambling games like Rummy and Texas Holdem Poker. The company noted that it was planning to charge a commission of under 5% on the winning hand but it didn't plan to bet on any of the players. It also claimed to have developed a completely transparent user friendly website after conducting a thorough due diligence of various financial, IT (Information Technology) and legal issues. Online Games v/s Real Games: Citing previous…
