Chennai: Tamil Nadu Assembly passed a bill to ban and regulate online gambling games on Wednesday. Earlier, Tamil Nadu government passed a resolution to ban online games in the state.
On Wednesday, Tamil Nadu Law Minister S Regupathy introduced a bill to Ban Online Gambling Games in Tamil Nadu assembly.
The move of the state government comes after a spate of suicide due to the addiction to online gambling games.
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The Tamil Nadu Governor RN Ravi on October 7 gave the nod to promulgate an ordinance to prohibit online gambling games and to regulate them.
The Tamil Nadu cabinet approved the ordinance in September.
The state government decided to ban online rummy based on a report submitted by a panel led by Justice Chandru.
The Tamil Nadu government also attempted to pass a bill on two different occasions. However, the efforts of the government got stalled due to the Madras HC ruling.
On August 2021, Madras High Court struck down the amendment and called it "unconstitutional".
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Meanwhile, it can be noted that 20 people killed themselves in the state during the past three years after losing money by playing online games.
Talking to IANS, sources in the government said that the onus will not be on banning online games, but instead, a mechanism will be developed to control them. The state is planning to regulate the companies which are into online games and also use social pressure against those who are becoming addicted to playing these online games.