This distinction, the court ruled, is completely lost in the amending Act as the original scheme in the 1930 law to confine gaming to games of chance has been turned upside down and all games were outlawed if played for a stake or for any prize. “It is true that Arnold Palmer or Severiano Ballesteros may never have mastered how golf is played on the computer or Messi or Ronaldo may be outplayed by a team of infants in a virtual game of football, but Viswanathan Anand or Omar Sharif would not be so disadvantaged when playing their chosen games of skill on the virtual mode,” the court said.
The court also drew in international sportspersons to make the distinction in skills of playing sports and games physically on the field, board games such as cards and scrabble and playing in cyberspace.
The court said the legislation “has to be regarded as something done by the legislature capriciously, irrationally and without adequate determining principle such that it is excessive and disproportionate…” The verdict came on a batch of petitions by online gaming companies challenging the blanket ban.
