By Diksha Sharma
Introduction
Nowadays the needs of the people are more, and the incomes are less. Everybody wants to live a luxurious life more over luxurious things attract people towards them a lot and everyone wants to earn a lot of money. People are ready to go to any extent to earn money without thinking and also neither sees its good side nor its bad side.
Similarly, people take the wrong path to earn money quickly. In the beginning it feels good to earn money like this but later there is a lot but later there is a lot of loss in adopting these paths. They forget that money is the only thing that cannot be earned quickly, but even then people do not think.
Gambling and betting are just two different ways to earn money in a speedy way. In the beginning, there is a lot of money in all these activities and people enjoy all these very much.
For some time, people live their life of their choice with all these earned money and fulfill their luxuries. People adopt these activities because of their glare but they regret it later.
In the race to earn money, people get so involved in all these things that they do not find any way to come back. Slowly they get so addictive to all these things that they forget to earn money properly. They ruin their house and their families all in the affairs of betting and even sometimes gambler commit suicide because they are unable to pay their betting debt.
So, now firstly let’s have a discussion on these two practices that what is gambling and betting. Further we will discuss that how the government has regulated these activities.
What is Gambling?
Gambling means wagering of money and something valuable by putting them on an uncertain risk with the hope of winning something as an outcome like winning money or valuable goods. It includes probability of winning or losing the game that is it is not necessary that the gambler will always win the game or always lose it.
Probability plays an important role in the practice of gambling like possibility of getting certain selected card.
As, it has been noticed that gambling is the most common wagering practice in today’s time because everyone wants to earn money either by correct way or wrong way. The most awful part of the gambling is that an individual always sees others winning money from the practice and they presuppose same for themselves and this is a start of bad beginning.
Repeated gambling is an addictive progress of an individual which cause financial loss to that person. They spend inordinate amounts of time and financial resources on gambling always hoping to recover their losses and as the problem precedes, they loss everything and those losses also have to be suffered by hid family members.
Besides gambling there is one more addiction that also involve wagering of money that is known as Sports Betting.
What is Sports Betting?
Today, betting has become an agreement between two parties- where one party predicts an outcome and wagers on a bet and the other party either forfeits the bet or pays the agreed amount of money to the person.
It is prediction of future events and wagering money on that outcome. Betting involves wagering on sports event like horse racing, football matches or on non-sports events like political elections and reality show contests.
Sports Betting is a form of betting. In sports, betting involves sports results and placing a wager on the outcome. Many bets that are being placed on the outcome of sports like football, hockey, basketball matches, etc. and as well as do betting on sporting events like auto racing, track cycling and boxing. Sports betting is done both at amateur and professional levels.
Both betting and gambling involve wagering money on the outcome of a game, race, or other unpredictable events. To regulate these both practices that is sports betting and gambling the Law commission of India has presented legal framework for the government.
So let’s have a discussion on the reports presented.
What is Law Commission’s Report on Betting and gambling?
Law Commission of India is an executive body established by the Government of India and it is neither constitutional body nor statutory body. Its major function is to examine the existing laws and to conduct legal research. It also recommends new laws to be established that need to be implemented for socio- economic benefits.
So, after noticing in the increase of gambling and betting law Commission shows its concern and on 5 July 2018 it submitted its 276th report, examining whether betting may be legalized in India. This report was titled as Legal Framework: Gambling and Sports Betting Including in Cricket in India.
They believed that it is difficult to ban both the things as these practices have grown larger in the country. So the Commission decided to set some of the guidelines to regulate the practice of gambling and betting.
This report was prepared by referring the case of Supreme Court of India, Board of Control for Cricket in India Vs Cricket Association of Bihar & Co.[1] The case filed against the owners of two teams: Rajasthan Royals and Chennai Super kings because in 2013 the Delhi Police acted upon information received of spot-fixing in IPL. Then BCCI set up a committee to investigate the matter.
In this case Supreme Court considered the recommended report “Report on Cricket Reforms” of the Justice R.M. Lodha, it was suggested that legalizing sports betting will help to reduce fraud in sports and will eliminate the unethical conducts in sports and its participants.
Further it also mentioned that functions of the board are neither public functions nor government functions as the board is autonomous body.
After this case Supreme Court addressed the commission to examine the issues relating to legalizing betting in India deeply. When the commission started its research on the issue they also find out many aspects relating to gambling also. They also found that these both practices are strongly related to each other.
So, it is necessary to take both these practices into consideration.
Then on 5th July 2018 commission submitted its report to the Central Government suggesting some of the recommendations and concluded the following points.
- Commission amended FEMA (Foreign Exchange Management Act, 1999) and some rules under the FDI (Foreign Direct Investment) as these amendments will encourage foreign investments. Legalized online betting and gambling will attract people in the casino and online gaming industry of India. It was also felt that this will promote growth of tourism and hospitality industry and thus it would also lead to higher revenue and moreover lead to an increase in employment opportunities.
- IT (Information Technology) Rules, 2011 was also amended as bars were imposed on hosting or transmitting content that were encouraging gambling. It was recommended that the word ‘Illegal’ must be used before the word ‘gambling’. So that those who transmit or host content relating to illegal gambling or gambling activities without license by any State, may be held liable.
- Another point was recommended that some class or some section of person will be legally prohibited to practice gambling or betting no matter whether these practices are online or offline. These class of person includes :
- Minors,
- Those who receive subsidies from the government, or
- Those who do not fall within the purview of the Income Tax Act, 1961, or the Goods and Services Tax Act, 2017.
- Further it was also added that any income that is derived from legal gambling or betting should be taxable under the Income Tax Act, 1961, the Goods and Services Tax Act, 2017 and other relevant Acts to generate income for the government from these activities.
- Player’s Aadhaar card/PAN card should be linked with the transactions of betting and gambling and this provision was added to protect the public from frauds of these activities and to increase transparency for State supervision.
- The commission also recommended to classified gambling in to two categories on the basis or high and low incomes that is:
- Proper gambling – People of only higher incomes will be permitted to indulge in this group of gambling.
- Small gambling – People belonging to the lower incomes will only be permitted to indulge in this classified group.
- It was noted that under the Constitution the practices that are Betting and gambling is a state subject and state legislatures may enact a law to regulate betting and gambling and Parliament can enact laws on the online gambling and betting as it observed that Parliament has full competence in this matter.
Conclusion
Law Commission of India has acted strictly in the matter of gambling to protect people and their families specially youth of our country. These practices getting strong day by day by the people and are getting more promoted because of its way of easy earning of money because these types of activities attract people speedily towards them
These regulations will not properly help the government to overcome these activities but somewhere these regulations will help them to keep an eye on these practices as this will stop fraudulent activities and moreover these regulations will help to control illegal gambling promoting in our society.
Our government is trying their best to stop these addictive practices to promote safe and secure life of the player and his family.
As these addictive practices first looks good, later it gives a lot of damages, in which the whole life of person ends. It is not only the responsibility of the government, but people themselves will also have to be aware.
Reference-
- Board of Control for Cricket in India Vs Cricket Association of Bihar & Co. Civil Appeal No. 4235 of 2014 ↑