MC EXCLUSIVE MC Interview: Govt will back jobs and creative economy as Online Gaming Bill takes shape, says Ashwini Vaishnaw

Union IT Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw.

Parliament has passed the Promotion and Regulation of Online Gaming Bill, 2025, a law that seeks to ban online money games, impose penalties for violations, and gives enforcement agencies strong powers to act against offending platforms.

But while the proposed law clamps down on money games, Union IT Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw, in an exclusive interview with Moneycontrol says the government will actively promote positive formats such as e-sports and online skill games and provide support to those who may be impacted by the ban. Edited excerpts:

What is the thinking behind this legislation?

Families are getting affected by it. There are some cases where students got into crime because of the debt that they had accumulated — so many cases. It was bigger than the drugs menace and it was growing very rapidly. If we wouldn’t have controlled it now, then it would have become totally out of control. Even the World Health Organization (WHO) has classified it as a disease now; they call it gaming disorder as part of the International Classification of Diseases.

There has been massive positive outpour from citizens in favour of this Bill. Members of Parliament across political lines have said that this has been a very good move.

Improving the gaming ecosystem, which is good for the society, that is where e-sports and online social games come in.

Now that the proposed law has been passed in the Parliament, with the President's assent expected to come in in the next couple of days, would you recommend these companies to start pivoting their business models from the get go? Would there be a grace period for these companies to give some time a breather of sort to pivot their business models? What's the sense over there?

Let the law take its whole course. Everyone has to follow the rule of the land.

In retrospect, were the 2023 IT Rules which seem to kind of "recognise the sector," was that a mistake?

Not really. Our attempt was to make the industry more responsible toward society, but unfortunately, that didn’t work out.

The Bill also talks about promoting e-sports and social gaming. What steps will the government take? Can we expect any big ticket schemes like the IndiaAI Mission for the gaming sector?

We already have created programmes for promoting the beneficial part of the gaming ecosystem through the IICT, the Indian Institute of Creative Technologies. We will be promoting game-makers by providing better technologies, better tools, better access to tools. That’s a creative economy which we have been constantly encouraging and will continue to encourage.

Let the suggestions come from the industry as well as stakeholders on how much more can be done, what needs to be done. We will certainly be supporting in a very nice way.

A lot of money has been poured into by the VC system, both domestic and international, mostly into real money gaming. What kind of message does this send?

Most VCs knew that this is an area which has issues, and this is not just India. Everywhere in the world people are facing these issues. People are trying to grapple with this problem.

Was there a concern with foreign direct investment (FDI) in this sector?

See, when the choice is between society's good, and certain segment of the industry, society’s good takes paramount importance. It's a very clear thought process. And it has been demonstrated in the past, for example in chit funds where the government had taken strong action against.

In the real estate sector, builders used to take deposits from people, and then they would not deliver the flats. We have taken very strong action against that.

So wherever the middle class is affected by certain segments of the industry, it's government's responsibility to come out and do the right things for supporting the middle classes.

The ban could affect jobs and companies. How will the government respond?

We will make all attempts to support the people who are affected by it.

Do you expect to face legal challenges (on this proposed law)?

Surely.

While, the Bill bans online money gaming, what about e-sports, and these tournaments where you can win a tournament fee?

That is allowed.

For instance, for fee for entering into tournaments?

Yes. E-sports is going to be promoted. We are going to have competitions for that. And good thing is that we have had the National Sports Governance Act also passed very recently. There is a very clear mechanism for recognising the e-sports there.

The Bill places restrictions on celebrity and influencer endorsements of money games. Why?

Because doctors and people who understand these mental health points have said that the fundamental construct by which a person gets into this addiction is because of the endorsement by celebrities, and by endorsement of influencers. That is the way they get into this and that keeps on getting reinforced. So that’s why we kept that and the finance thing, because the most effective way of controlling it is at source.

After the Bill becomes law, if a celebrity endorsement appears on social media, who will be penalised?

Celebrity will be penalised.

The bill talks about banning online money games, because of addiction related issues and the financial loss which we have seen. However, addiction is also a social issue. How can this be addressed?

Such complex problems have to be dealt with by the entire society — by parents, by friends, by teachers. The entire society has to come up and solve such problems. By creating awareness about the harms of online money gaming, by creating structures by which if somebody has got caught in it — let’s say a child is caught in it and parents come to know very late — then it might be too late. So more awareness is needed.