Bitcoin Forum

As per a recent article online:

https://medium.com/@cryptokanoon/law-commission-of-india-treats-crypto-currency-at-par-with-other-recognized-electronic-means-of-4ec662183b7e

Trend of online gambling with crypto in India is on continuous rise. What is your opinion about this ?

That's much better instead of prohibiting it. If they can see some good market to gambling on their country then that's better to start regulating the industry.  It can also be one of the best industries that can contribute to their economy.

India has a large population and if there's a big portion of their citizen into crypto and gambling this will be a big trend.

The rumor about India banning crypto's will remain as a rumor now.

There are already many people in India using bitcoin for online gambling (https://www.cryptogamblingsites.com/gambling-country-guides/india-gambling/).

Playing with Rupee's on sites like bet365 happens, but that is up and down because the payment processors have to use Indian banks.

With bitcoin being so popular, the amount of bitcoin gambling sites available is only going to increase.

It is banned in the country and people who are using it are against the law of the country. Cyber cell will identified it and then unnecessary they would have not earned from the gambling that much they would have to pay penalty and may even be sentenced to jail.

That could be part of the reason India is on the top 10 TOR user countries list.

https://metrics.torproject.org/userstats-relay-table.html

And VPN is so popular.

People don't trust the government because they help the banks in India continue to be corrupt. The Bank Morass is missing money and ATM's are dry (https://www.bloomberg.com/gadfly/articles/2018-04-23/a-cash-crunch-is-the-ugly-face-of-india-s-bank-morass), India City Union Bank was hacked (https://www.reuters.com/article/us-city-union-bank-swift/india-bank-hack-similar-to-81-million-bangladesh-central-bank-heist-idUSKCN1G319K) and the Punjab National Bank is accused of fraud (https://www.reuters.com/article/us-punjab-natl-bank-fraud-insight/eyes-wide-shut-the-1-8-billion-indian-bank-fraud-that-went-unnoticed-idUSKCN1G20OZ) in the amount of $1.8 billion. This is just in 2018, look at the things that happened in the last 5 years or decades, it's all corruption.

This is why bitcoin adoption in India (https://www.cryptogamblingsites.com/country-guides/india-crypto-currency/) will continue regardless of the government banning it and anyone gambling will just do it through VPN/TOR with the bitcoin or altcoins they own rather than rupee.

Very interesting. I never thought that India is heavily on crypto online gambling. I haven't seen that many Indian nationals when I played on land based casino that's why I was surprised to find when you says that the trend of online gambling is on the rise in India. I think its would be better for the Indian government to adopt and accept bitcoin and just put a tax on it. Instead of going against the flow because we all know that crypto is really unstoppable.

I believe every country should license and regulate gambling , this way it's better for the government and better for the citizens as well
here gambling is still technically illegal , but it's not that a big of crime where you pay maximum 200$ if busted ( as I remember the laws about it )

like here there is a site running and illegally , many citizens use this site cause let's face you can't ban people from doing what they want
people everywhere will always gamble , so instead of letting them do it with shady and illegal operators where there is a good chance of them scamming the money when they feel they have enough simply the governments should benefit from it and protect the citizens

here in Syria few years ago the government started such a move , a big casino was opened in Damascus but then the religion guys didn't like it and they kept demanding for closing it which is what happened

now since we are coming out of war I guess gambling in Syria will be legal at some point , maybe next year but the country need investors and I guess this will happen

Right you are! Very recently the Law commission of India submitted a report on gambling to the Finance Ministry and to the market regulators to legalize gambling and sports betting in India. You can read the news from the below link,

http://www.asgam.com/news/item/4974-law-commission-of-india-recommends-legalizing-sports-betting-and-gambling.html

Indian government tried real hard to stop any kind of gambling to take place on its soil but failed miserably. Now they are thinking of capitalize on this same idea. Nothing has been materialize yet but lets hope for the best!

It isn't' bad to regulate gambling online as far as everybody knows is the best way to clean money, And this could able to open a better look to cryptocurrencies in Indian which is, in fact, one of the greatest markets in the world.

The problem is "regulating" gambling in India won't provide a "solution" to all the bitcoin and altcoin gambling sites.

Regulating usually means "taxing." If the taxes are high for players and "regulated" gambling sites, the bitcoin and altcoin gambling sites will just not be "regulated" in the country but allow players to gamble tax-free and discrete.

Gambling online doesn't affect much to people unlike the real life gambling. The idea is all about virtual betting, so no need to become strict to that. Maybe there's some regulations to follow upon licensing concerns with the site developer, but it can be arranged as well. Online betting using cryptocurrency is more advantage rather than allowing legit gambling like the local areas, and mostly prone to attract more under age people which isn't good appropriate.

Gambling legislation is good news, however, India seemed like a more religious country to me, because as far as I know Hindu practices mostly disfavour gambling as a form of entertainment. Anyway it's probably for the best, something that is prohibited by the government always finds itself in the shadows and gives rise to black markets, criminality and danger. We can see it now on the example of drugs - whoever wants will find a way to but it, so it would be better to legalize it gaining two benefits at the same time: cutting off criminality and turning all that money that went to lawbreakers to the central government budget.

The government of India wants everyone to be safe and letting those licensed sites to operate. Though it's much difficult for competition of gambling sites, it is much better than being prohibited.

Most of the government rules and norms are completely against the people and small scale investors in their country. So I do not know why you are supporting your country this much is gambling side. Gambling is one of the easiest way to make money if you have luck and tactics. But I do not know any gambling site which is represent India with the big impact on the world countries buddies.
I suggest you to go with the betting sites and dice game sites to make the money.

Yes, this is much better than outright banning gambling. People should be able to gamble with their money if they choose, theyre adults, they can make their own decisions. The government shouldn't have a say in something like this. Gambling helps adoption, I've heard a lot of people in the poker space has adopted/bought Bitcoin after hearing about it during a game. Anything that helps adoption is good. Now if only India doesn't ban crypto...

I'm sure they won't. But if they do, they will be putting themselves on the wrong side of history, and will be well behind on this technology.

Good thing to know regarding with India's mindset with gambling, which to be associated with the authorities on their faith. Most of the countries really have the separation of the state to religion itself, but this matter about them was really serious about it. That's really a very effective ways to handle over crimes, so it's one way of correcting the problem from the start in order to prevent crimes like robbery or any crimes related to stealing money. With that practices, people will learn how to manage their gambling desires and also they will have strong religious relationship as part of spiritual growth.

I think the fact that India encourages online and crypto gambling is not the best way to support cryptocurrency but its a step forward.

If that would be the scenario with India's support for online gambling, then it isn't a problem with the law regulations. Stepping forward is the best ways on how people could adapt in the same manner, that online gambling can be done without any negative image despite of how holy is the person on his religion. Having fun couldn't be stopped, as long as performed the right way.

In 2016, the population of India was 1.324 billion. If the government regulates online gambling and only a very small percentage of the population plays, the government will make a lot of money in taxes.

The Indian government will surely make alot of money through taxes cause India are know for their love for sport, especially cricket and India is a very traditional country which is why I'm surprised that their government law commission endorsed and license gamble site but I hate the fact that they categorized crypto currency with credit card not as legal tender payment.

 

Currently, a lot of illegal gambling activity is happening in India so they are just trying to reduce that percentage and also the government can make some tax money from it. Indian government very popular for the high taxes so I expect it will be a very huge amount of tax they may add for all the winning amount and which may indirectly force people to choose to gamble illegally or go to crypto gambling sites which are not regulated for the taxes to reduct from the winning amount.

The tax should be a reasonable amount then only people may be ready to pay it because they risk their hard earned money to play these games so the government shouldn't ask for a huge amount of tax.

If you are thinking your country as a selfless country that has nothing to do for controlling this illegal activity, so listen, brother this isn’t only India, rather many other countries as well that has got maximum illegal activities running under the law and mostly under the nose of politicians. They can’t control it so you. But we really are hopeful for the best results you people could make.

Yes that is right that people will happily pay tax on their gambling income, but if the tax is reasonable. If government will put tax on online casinos first they will regulate them and it will surely be in favour of gambler which can make their investment in casinos as more secure.

I read the article but it is difficult to take them seriously when their own institutions of the government of India does not seem to agree about the current legal status of bitcoin and cryptocurrencies in general, one entity says there is not any need to declare it legal or illegal, but that means in principle that anything that is not forbidden is legal by default, while another entity is using that very same ruling to say that it is illegal.

This is just a money grab attempt in my opinion and since they do not seem to agree in something as basic as that, it is clear to me they are going to fail in their attempt to regulate the use of cryptocurrencies in gambling.

That is very much common in backward countries, where the illegal activities are too much and they have the support of their politician and other people. I think that these activities are more in such countries where people do not have jobs opportunities or other source of getting income.

Bitcoins and other cryptos have made gambling much easier, faster and secure giving no authority to track the transaction so i think that it is really good. As per the government of India, having some issues regarding the circulation of cryptos with their fiat currency, they banned the incoming and outgoing transactions related to cryptos with the centralised banks. RBI(Reserve Bank of India) decided to shut down all the major accounts related to cryptos so that caused some minor distrubance in between in the region of India but everything is alright now i guess. Also if the government of any country has profits with cryptos, they would insist it and make them grow more.

As i know any kind of gambling are prohibited to all Indian people it's against in their religion
In my opinion crypto gambling are difficult to banned if people they want to play gamlbling
meaning nobody  can stop people freedom to choose their happiness

That is the reason why most of the government choose not to ban them in their country but just increase the tax that they are getting from these gambling places or casinos. With that, they will be able to earn something out of these gambling addicts. People will always find a way to gamble, it might be banned to their country but gambling sometimes would not hurt right?

Gambling of any form is banned in India but that is not because of the religions. There are indeed few religions where gambling is totally banned and considered as a sin, but that's not all. There are other socio-political issues which made the gambling prohibited in India. But yes, crypto gambling or online gambling can't be banned in India because of its nature. Even offline gambling on various sports is very much popular in India and people spend billions on gambling here. But due to the legal prohibition, government is not getting any benefit out of it! That is the reason why Law commission of India proposed to legalized gambling! At least government will earn something out of it!

Hey the last time in I was in India, I was informed your country does not allow bets on sports, it's considered criminal offence there, and then I visited Goa and went for a derby, and I gambled at both places. It seems gambling has always been going on unregulated, now they're keen on regulating it which will make sense, if you see from government point of view, they'll get revenue. I don't think that it's banned due to religious sentiments, government will secure it's revenue first, though at this point how will they deal with all people in jail for gambling, this shall be interesting don't you think?.

Yeah, its really a choice and even if Indian government banned it or what they cannot stop its people from gambling. Crypto gambling sites is rising, since many investors are coming in this market and its a good opportunity for a gambling sites to do business in cryptoworld. India is a huge market, a lot of people there are still playing gambling even though its highly prohibited, and gambling through online is one way of keeping them anonymous.

this means that crypto can be enjoyed by several countries in the world, if indeed gambling in India already uses crypto, it means that India is an important part of the future development of crypto.

India as far as I know has a illegal status to gambling in their country unless it is on the sea being setup. On land they have this law that it is illegal and if caught you would be punished and may be imprisoned.  And also if used crypto to gambling still you are doing illegal thing.

Cryptos are not actually mentioned completely legal in India and also gambling in some parts is legal and allowed under some special acts and permissions. If done without permission and under illegal acts, then gambling can be punished and the individual caught in gambling can be imprisoned for a certain time limit. It is for the betterment of the country i guess and it might surely be donating some major rules and acts to the country.

Gambling is not illegal in India,some form of the betting were prohibited like lottery and some other thing because people using this for money laundering but the crypto gambling is famous among the Indian players because they still don't have any taxes for using the bitcoin and they can play with anonymous here.And moreover India is looking to legalize the crypto gambling with the certain percentage of tax since they identified that the bets were happening in millions so it can bring huge revenue to the government.

As far as I know, gambling is not completely illegal in India. Two states, Goa and Sikkim allow land based Casinos. As for online gambling, with the exception of in Maharashtra state, there are no laws which clearly state that it is illegal for an Indian resident to gamble online.

Online gambling, if regulated correctly, can bring a lot of money to the budget of the country, so forbidding it would be an unwise move. Could you share some links in proof of what you said?

You are right. Gambling is a state subject in India. States can formulate laws for gambling activities. We are still following the Public Gambling Act ,1867 and it has no reference to online gambling activities. That is why there is no law clearly states that Online gambling is illegal.

That's what I thought. So, basically, if a crooked cop in India, knowing that you own a gambling site, is threatening and blackmailing you, extorting a bribe, you can ignore him because you do nothing illegal.

It's interesting that some people, like @onrise here, for example, think exactly the opposite. Can't they read? Or, maybe, there's a lot of contradictory information on the subject, especially in the local press and TV.

Yes people are so confused. In India if you are an influential person you can easily get away from crimes committed. You may have heard of big frauds in India who scammed millions of dollars and peacefully living in other countries. So, that's the case in gambling industry too, if the government really want to nail you, they could easily do it. On the contrary, they could also help you to go out if you can successfully bribe influential politicians.

India has the largest Crypto gamblers / investors.

If you don't know India has the most workers for Facebook adds, where they provide some sort of better SEO marketing.

They also like / love to invest in new technologies so it can become a much rich world.

I support India's gambling approach right now as long they play safe against government counter measurements.

As you said the countries like India were asking more than the are supposed to ask that is why people are using the loop holes to avoid any taxes if they are implementing the right amount of taxes then it may encouraes the people to pay the taxes and also they can generate more revenue which can be used for country's development.

I actually wonder why some people keep saying gambling is legal in India. As far as I am concerned, gambling in India is very much restricted except maybe for horse racing and lotteries. Any other act asides that is considered illegal and anyone doing it is actually going against the law.

The only thing here is that, despite the public law and prohibitions, there are still a lot of illegal gambling activities going on in India with the Indian government not being able to do anything about it, but in the real sense, it is considered not legal.

Gambling in India is actually a law that is restricted to each state and while it is OK in some areas, and there is no strict law on it, it is considered illegal in some places and anyone caught in the act will be subject to some fine payments or about 3 months imprisonment according to the public law on gambling. Although despite all these, we still get to see a lot of illegal gambling in India and in some cases where police has raided some places in the past due to such act.

Countries have long been trying to find a way to legislate cryptocurrency. India is an excellent source for the development of crypto gambling. They have a large population that will cover a sufficient part of the gambling industry. In addition, they made a huge step in the development of crypto, since they are ready to legally approve cryptocurrency ... Not all countries can do this!