Rummy- legal in India.

How is Rummy, considered a skill game under the Indian law?
During 1996, Supreme Court has defined game of skills as follows:
  • Competition depending on the substantial degree of skills are not categorized as gambling.
  • Even if there be an existing chance that the game is preponderantly a skill game, it still wouldn’t be a game of mere skill. The expression "mere skill" therefore means a substantial degree or preponderance of skill.

Rummy is a game, which needs certain skills to be exhibited since the fall of cards are to be memorized and also for holding the right cards and discarding the unnecessary cards.

Therefore, it is considered a game of skill and not a chance under the Indian law with an exception of few states.

  • The definition which has been given to the Gambling or gaming by the Supreme Court during the 1996 was that, it was considered betting, also wagering on the games which deals with luck or chance only.
  • This definition excludes the part of the skill games or any terms where it is played for money.
  • The quote from 1996 judgment was exactly as follows:
  • "The expression 'gaming' in the two Acts has to be interpreted in the light of the law laid-down by this Court in the two 1957 cases, where it has been authoritatively held that a competition which substantially depends on skill is not gambling. Gaming is the act or practice of gambling on a game of chance. It is risking on chance where chance is the controlling factor. Thus, gaming would mean betting on games which purely depends on chance and none other."
  • Thus anyone going against these laws and betting or gambling under the games of laws would be considered an illegal act.
Rummy is a skill game to which prize competitions involving required skills are business activities that are safeguarded under Article 19(1)(g) of the Indian constitution. There is no doubt regarding the law enacted by the State Legislature which was to control the prize competitions of which mostly seemed like gambling and not prize competitions in which success depended on the skills
The Public Gambling Act, the central law on gambling and state laws on this subject stated that ânothing in this Act shall apply to games of mere skill wherever played. This statement is also mentioned in the 1996 judgments of Supreme Court regarding Madras law and Tamil Nadu law.
Thus it is very clear that the skill games are different from gambling according to the Indian laws.
According to the rulings of Supreme Court along with the gaming acts of India, it is stated that
  • Skill games are immune from the legal arrangements or plans of many gaming or gambling acts. Since rummy is not labeled as betting or gambling it is absolutely legal.
  • Rummy presents itself as a game which needs skills than luck or chance.
  • Rummy has always been a game which required skills where no person would simply excel without that. Supreme Court has specifically stated that which includes betting on the games which depend on the chance or luck rather than the skill are considered into a different section. With this information, it is concluded that playing Rummy on is completely legal and safe because it needs skills to do so.
  • There is something which needs to be focused on as well. The players from Telangana, Sikkim, Assam, Odisha and Nagaland are not allowed to play from this website. This is because "The Assam Game and Betting Act, 1970 and Prevention of Gambling Act, 1954" don't give exception to the skill games too.