Online Gaming Bill will impact horse racing
By Sharan Kumar
The Lok Sabha’s passage of the Promotion and
Regulation of Online Gaming Bill, 2025 has been hailed by the government as
a strike against addiction, crime, and financial ruin. But for horse racing,
already a sport on life support, the move could well be the coup de grâce.
The bill takes the easy route of imposing a blanket
ban on all real-money games, drawing no distinction between a game of
skill like horse racing and pure games of chance. In one stroke, racing has
been tossed into the same basket as fantasy leagues, poker dens, and online
lotteries. The much-needed window of growth—online betting platforms
that were beginning to steady turf clubs—has now been slammed shut.
Clubs like Hyderabad Race Club and Royal
Calcutta Turf Club had begun reaping the benefits of online wagering, while
others such as RWITC and Madras Race Club were finally taking baby steps
in that direction. Sponsorships too were flowing in, with online betting apps
underwriting major races with crores, quietly propping up a sport battered by
dwindling footfalls and crushing taxation. All of that is now history. With harsh
penalties and a ban on surrogate advertising, even companies like North
Alley (Playhydraces) and Sportswin (Betindiaraces) which were
official channels for online betting on Indian horse racing licensed by turf
clubs in India will have to shut shop, leaving turf clubs stripped of yet another
revenue lifeline.
But the real dagger is not the ban itself—it is
the looming proposal to hike GST on betting from 28% to 40%. And unless
the system shifts from taxing gross turnover to taxing net winnings
(as every sensible jurisdiction does), the increase will be nothing short of a
death warrant. Already, clubs are forced to pay tax on money that never enters
their coffers, a practice under challenge in the Supreme Court. Raise that levy
further, and horse racing will not just bleed—it will haemorrhage beyond
revival.
This “one-size-fits-all” ban also ignores the reality
on the ground: punters will not stop betting. They will simply move to offshore
apps and underground networks, taking billions in taxable revenue with
them. Congress MP Shashi Tharoor is right to warn that the government is
driving the activity underground and handing it over to criminal mafias. In
racing’s case, the impact is even more brutal because the sport’s regulated
ecosystem—turf clubs, breeders, trainers, jockeys, stable hands—relies on
betting revenues for survival. When that stream dries up, it is not just a
pastime that dies, but the livelihood of thousands.
Horse racing, once the “Sport of Kings,” has already
been reduced to an endangered sport under the GST regime. With this new
bill and the spectre of a tax hike, the government has virtually signed its
obituary. Unless reason prevails and the distinction between skill-based
sport and gambling is restored in law and taxation, Indian horse racing
will collapse into irrelevance—a victim not of dwindling interest, but of
policy indifference.
The Online Gaming Bill could reshape horse switch free game racing by tightening regulations on betting platforms. This may affect revenue streams and change how punters engage with the sport.
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