New online gaming rules bring clarity, structure to India’s esports ecosystem: Industry
The freshly-minted online gaming rules unequivocally recognise registered esports as a legitimate sporting discipline, the industry said on Thursday, adding that the overall framework will prevent proxy real-money platforms from masquerading as esports.
Some, however, drew attention to key gaps such as a lack of clarity on financial frameworks faced by esports teams and players, and flagged ongoing challenges in how banks differentiate between esports earnings and real money gaming.
The comments come in the backdrop of the Centre on Wednesday notifying long-awaited rules to operationalise the Promotion and Regulation of Online Gaming Act, paving the way for the sector’s digital-first regulator, ‘online gaming authority’, and setting out a “regulation-light” framework that would not require mandatory registration or prior determination/classification for most online social games.
The rules come into effect from May 1, 2026. Akshat Rathee, Co-founder and Managing Director of NODWIN Gaming, said the rules bring much-needed clarity and structure to India’s esports ecosystem.
He termed the provision for formal registration of titles as esports by publishers “a particularly welcome move” saying it eliminates the risk of misrepresentation and prevents proxy real-money platforms from self-declaring themselves as esports.
The introduction of a 90-day determination process strikes a balance between regulatory scrutiny and certainty.
“For players, teams, tournament operators, broadcasters, sponsors, and other ecosystem participants, this creates a clear signal: once registered, an esports is unequivocally recognized as a legitimate sporting discipline,” Rathee said.
Animesh Agarwal, Co-founder and CEO, S8UL, said the norms bring much-needed structure to the ecosystem, clearly separating esports from online money gaming and helping address “long-standing confusion” around the space.
“For organisations like S8UL, this direction allows us to take a more long-term view - investing in talent, scaling teams, and building globally competitive structures with greater confidence,” Agarwal said.
That said, important gaps that need to be addressed, he pointed out. “Esports teams and players continue to face a lack of clarity on financial frameworks, with ongoing challenges in how banks differentiate between esports earnings and real money gaming. There is also no clear pathway today to formally register esports teams as entities within a defined structure,” Agarwal said.
Players and organisations still lack comprehensive protections under a clear regulatory framework, Agarwal said and added that addressing these areas will be critical for the ecosystem to move from early structure to full legitimacy and long-term sustainability.
Vishal Parekh, Chief Operating Officer, CyberPowerPC India, said that the rules bring structure and accountability to India’s gaming ecosystem.
“The introduction of clear guardrails and enforcement mechanisms will play a crucial role in building trust, not just among players and families, but also among global partners, brands and investors looking at India as a growth market,” Parekh said.
Sagar Nair, Head of Incubation, LVL Zero Incubator, noted that clarity in regulation is one of the most critical enablers for innovation, and highlighted that the framework helps remove long-standing ambiguity that founders have had to navigate.
“By clearly distinguishing esports and non-money gaming from online money gaming, the Act creates a more predictable environment for builders to focus on creating high-quality gaming experiences, scalable IPs, and globally relevant products,” Nair said.
The just-announced norms introduce a new concept of ‘user safety features’ as an enabling provision — technical, procedural, operational, behavioural or system-related safeguards appropriate to the risk profile of the game.
These include age-verification and age-gating, time restrictions, parental controls, user reporting tools, counselling support, and fair-play and integrity monitoring. Service providers may be required to disclose their ‘user safety features’ and internal grievance mechanisms at the time of application for determination or registration.
The new rules stipulate a determination litmus test as well, to classify whether an online game constitutes an online money game which parent Act explicitly bans — such a test is triggered in three situations: in case the authority itself initiates a suo motu review, where the provider has an e-sport offering, or notably, where Government specifies a category of social games basis “nature, volume or value of financial transactions or authorisation of funds” needed to participate in it.
Registration is required only where the Government so notifies, taking into consideration risk to users (including children), scale of participation, financial transactions, country of origin or the head office of the online game service provider offering the game, and “such other factors as the Authority deems necessary in public interest or to protect the interests of users”.
Esports, however, does require mandatory registration - something that the Parent Act itself specifies. And real money games are, of course, explicitly banned under the Act and its provisions.
On successful determination and registration, the online gaming authority will issue a ‘digital Certificate of Registration’ with a unique registration number, valid for a period of up to 10 years.
The rules cast specific compliance obligations on banks and financial institutions — they will have to ensure that financial flows are restricted to legitimate, registered gaming entities.
An IT Ministry official said that banks can ask for a certificate of registration, say, in cases where they notice multiple financial transactions.
If the online gaming authority — the sector’s digital-first regulator — determines that a game constitutes an ‘online money game’, it can issue orders to banks to immediately suspend, restrict, or discontinue all financial transactions related to that game.
