Andhra Pradesh House passes bill that bans online gaming, betting

The Andhra Pradesh Legislative Assembly on December 1, 2020 passed the AP Gaming (Amendment) Bill 2020 through voice vote, banning online gaming in the state.

Speaking on the bill, AP Chief Minister YS Jagan Mohan Reddy said that the bill was brought in after some youngsters in the state committed suicide after being pushed into debts by playing online games.

The state's Home Minister M Sucharita informed that the AP Gaming Act, 1974 was being amended to bring online gaming into its purview.

The main objective behind amending the gaming law is to curb organised crimes such as money laundering and fraud in the state.

According to the state's Home Minister, online gambling could induce criminal behaviour in society and lead to an increase in the number of organised crimes such as fraud and money laundering.

Key Highlights

•Several internet websites that claim to provide gambling services are not authentic and there are no regulatory measures to check the legitimacy of these sites.

•This makes it easy for such sites to defraud the customers, as per the state Home Minister.

•She also added that this raises a lot of security and privacy issues.

Penalty for Violation of Bill's provisions
•Under the amendment bill, the penalty for the first offence will be imprisonment up to one year and a fine of Rs 5,000.

•The term of imprisonment might extend up to two years and a fine of Rs 10,000 for every subsequent offence.

•Every offence under the bill has been made cognisable and non-bailable.