Legal Status

Under the Schedule VII, List II, Entry 34 of the Constitution of India, the State Legislatures have been entrusted with the power to frame state specific laws on ‘betting and gambling’. The Public Gambling Act, 1867, is a central enactment on the subject, which has been adopted by certain states of India. The other states in India have enacted their own legislation for regulating gaming activities within its territory. Blitzpools hereby understands and expects the Users to be aware of their respective State laws. We accept no liability, whether jointly or severally, for any commissions or omissions on the part of the Users.

Games of skill are legal, as they are excluded from the ambit of Indian gambling legislations including, the Public Gambling Act of 1867.

The Supreme Court of India in State of Bombay v. R.M.D. Chamarbaugwala (AIR 1957 SC 699) has interpreted the words “mere skill” to include games which are preponderantly of skill and have laid down that (i) the competitions where success depends on substantial degree of skill will not fall into category of ‘gambling’; and (ii) despite there being an element of chance, if a game is preponderantly a game of skill, it would nevertheless be a game of “mere skill”.

The Supreme Court of India in the cases of State of Andhra Pradesh v. K Satyanarayana & Ors (AIR 1968 SC 825) and KR Lakshmanan v. State of Tamil Nadu (AIR 1996 SC 1153) has held that a game in which success depends predominantly upon the superior knowledge, training, attention, experience and adroitness of the player shall be classified as a game of skill.

The question of whether an online fantasy sports game can be considered gambling was decided in the matter of Varun Gumber v. Union Territory of Chandigarh and Others (2017 CriLJ 382) by the High Court of Punjab and Haryana. The Court held that online fantasy sports do not fall within the activity of gambling under the applicable laws in the states. The court stated that the success in fantasy sports depends on the exercise of superior knowledge, judgment, adroitness, training and attention. According to the court a player is required to draft a virtual team, an exercise which amongst other things, requires an assessment of relative worth of each sportsperson i.e., an understanding of the opportunity cost of getting the player on board, study of rules of the fantasy sport and analysis of the relative strengths of all players.

In the above case the court also observed parallels between skills required in betting on horse racing and the skills required in participating in a fantasy sport, declaring that the skills required to play the two sports are same, thus concluding that fantasy sports are a game of skill. In accordance with this view, it stated that the same way in which a player must understand and analyse the rules of horse racing, stamina of the horse, form of the horse and skills of the rider while betting on horse racing, a player must also know rules of fantasy sports, the form of the real-life sportspersons, statistics associated with the real-life sport etc.

This reasoning of the High Court of Punjab and Haryana was also reiterated by the Bombay High Court in the case of Gurpreet Singh Sachar v. Union of India and Others (Order dated 30 April 2019 by the Bombay High Court in Criminal Public Interest Litigation (St) No. 22 of 2019).

The Contest across the Gaming Facilities are games of skill as success of Users depends primarily on their superior knowledge of the games of cricket and/or football statistics, knowledge of players′ relative form, players′ performance in a particular territory, conditions and/or format (such as ODIs, test cricket and Twenty20 in the cricket game), attention and dedication towards the Contest(s) and adroitness in playing the Contest(s). The Contest(s) also requires Users to field well-balanced sides with limited resources and make substitutions at appropriate times to gain the maximum points.

By participating in this Contest(s), each User acknowledges and agrees that he/she is participating in a game of skill.