Our study is built through an in-depth literature review and primary research process by talking to stakeholders across industry, law and policymakers. It provides context around the industry, its growing economic potential, and its role in overarching community and sports engagement. Analysing the existing regulatory regime allowed us to identify key challenges within this sector. We highlighted the importance of segmenting skill and chance-based games and addressing the dissonance between regulations on pay-to-play games across states. Furthermore, we discussed the idea of self-regulation in this context and the various challenges to consider when building an effective and successful self-regulatory organisation. Finally, we also examined potential consumer challenges that OFSP users could face and underlined the need to address them. The report also analyses global practices to understand how OFSPs are regulated across geographies and help evaluate policy decisions that could influence the way forward in an Indian context. Having established the foundational aspects of this subject, the study proceeds to break down recommendations which can help further the discourse towards an enabling regulatory ecosystem over the coming years.
Authored by: Gautam Kathuria, Eshani Vaidya
