Govt notifies online gaming rules, to set up governing authority

The government has notified online gaming rules mandating user safety features and grievance redressal, with new norms set to come into effect from May 1

The Centre on Wednesday notified the administrative rules under the Promotion and Regulation of Online Gaming Act, 2025 (PROGA), which mandate gaming companies in India to implement features that protect players from financial, psychological, social, security-related, or content-related harm. It also provides for the formation of a six-member Online Gaming Authority of India.

 

These rules, notified by the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (Meity), will come into effect from May 1.

 

The new rules mandate that gaming companies provide “procedural, operational, behavioural, or system-related safeguards for promoting responsible online gaming, preventing injury, enhancing transparency, enabling informed user choice and ensuring the integrity and safety of the online gaming environment”.

   

OGAI will be headed by an additional secretary rank official of the IT ministry. Joint secretary rank officials from the Ministries of Home Affairs, Information and Broadcasting, Youth Affairs and Sports, as well as the Department of Financial Services and the Department of Legal Affairs will be OGAI’s ex-officio members.

 

In the rules, the government has also removed the requirement for mandatory pre-registration of online games with OGAI, with the caveat that such games or gaming companies do not offer services that risk harming users or children. They should not have the potential to cause injury or a detrimental impact on players, the rules state.

 

“We wanted, as far as possible, to keep this entire thing (online gaming) as regulation-light as possible,” IT ministry secretary S Krishnan said.

 

All forms of e-sports will need to be mandatorily registered with the OGAI. The rules delineating games or gaming companies that will need to register with OGAI will be determined based on their meeting certain conditions such as the scale of user participation, the nature, volume or value of financial transactions or authorisation of funds permitted. Other criteria include the country of origin or the head office of the online game service provider offering the game in India.

 

All companies offering games or any other related services in India will be required to “establish and maintain a functional grievance redressal mechanism” for players on the games being offered by them. Users can approach OGI for redress within 30 days of filing the complaint or lapse of the redress window. 

 

“The aggrieved user may approach the authority within a period of 30 days from the date on which the online game service provider has conveyed their decision in relation to the grievance or in case of non-redressal of grievances within the said timeline through the digital form published on website or mobile based application of the authority, as the case may be,” the newly notified rules state.

 

Under the rules, banking service providers must verify if the said game or entity is permitted to operate in India by OGAI. Alternatively, they should verify that the game or gaming entity has a registration certificate before allowing them to use banking facilities.

 

Once OGAI determines that the said game or gaming service is not permitted to operate in India, the bank must suspend or restrict the entity's financial transactions and provide all information to the authority for any further probe, as required.