The thought of legal, regulated gambling in India is something that every gambling operator on the planet dreams of at night. After all, India’s population is somewhere around 1.25 billion and a little over half of its residents are of gambling age.
In this light, a recent meeting of the Law Commission of India, the country’s top legal reform office, should be quite interesting casino affiliates and operators. According to a report in the Hindustan Times, as reported on by Calvin Ayre, the Commission is taking a, “serious look,” at the issues surrounding legal gambling.
Indian lawmakers and businessmen are keen on the idea of regulated casinos and sports betting for all the obvious reasons, money, money, money. A legal Indian gaming business could generate as much as $45 billion (USD) in annual revenues. Though there hasn’t been much talk of how much that industry would be taxed, the revenue benefits for the Indian government would immense.
Indian lawmakers have been drifting towards regulated gambling for quite some time, which makes the Law Commission’s study a bit of a no-brainer. Last year the Indian Supreme Court issued a sports-betting friendly ruling that put the final decision regarding legalization in the hands of the Indian Parliament.
The Law Commission also recognizes the incredible amount of money that Indians are already pumping into the illegal economy and that their country’s current regulatory framework is badly outdated. One Commission member was quoted in the Indian press as saying:
It (betting and gambling) is already happening through the internet and it is hard to stop in the absence of an updated law.
So far there’s no word on when the Law Commission will take its recommendations to Parliament.