Gaming
Gameskraft halts Rummy cash play after new online gaming bill enforcement
MUMBAI: The cards have been reshuffled in India’s online gaming arena and this time, it’s the law dealing the hand. Following the enactment of the Promotion and Regulation of Online Gaming Bill, 2025, which prohibits all real-money games, skill or chance, Gameskraft has announced a full stop to gameplay and cash deposits on its Rummy platforms from 21 August 2025.
While users can no longer add money or play, the company stressed that withdrawal services remain active, with all account balances “safe and secure.” Gameskraft said it is working with banking partners, auditors, and legal advisors to ensure a seamless process for players cashing out.
Unlike previous flashpoints between gaming companies and regulators, Gameskraft made it clear there would be no legal challenge this time. “We fully respect the legislative process and remain committed to operating within the framework of the law,” the company stated.
The focus now shifts to the future. The company revealed it has begun structured internal discussions to explore new business models in line with the bill, guided by what it calls its pillars of responsible innovation, player protection, and regulatory alignment.
Gameskraft has also reassured stakeholders that it has cleared all regulatory dues, proactively communicated with employees, partners, vendors, and service providers, and safeguarded their interests during this transition.
Calling compliance “non-negotiable”, the company said the moment, while disruptive, is also an opportunity to “reimagine what’s next responsibly, lawfully, and for long-term value creation.”
With the ban cutting across India’s booming real-money gaming sector, the industry is now in reset mode. For Gameskraft, once a major player in the Rummy space, the challenge is no longer just winning the game, it’s reinventing it.
Gaming
India’s broadcasters say no to Fifa World Cup 2026
Fifa has slashed its asking price by 65 per cent but India’s broadcasters are still not buying
MUMBAI: The world’s biggest sporting event cannot find a single taker in the world’s most sports-mad nation. Fifa’s television rights for the 2026 World Cup remain unsold in India, and the clock is ticking loudly.
To shift the property, world football’s governing body has already swallowed hard and cut its asking price from $100m to $35m, bundling in the 2030 edition as a sweetener. It has not worked. Indian broadcasters have looked at the offer, done the sums and quietly walked away.
The reasons are brutally simple. The 2026 tournament, co-hosted by the United States, Canada and Mexico, kicks off in a time zone that turns India’s primetime into a graveyard shift. Most matches will air between midnight and 7am IST, a scheduling catastrophe for advertisers chasing mass reach. The 2022 Qatar edition was a gift by comparison, with matches dropping neatly into Indian evenings. North America offers no such luxury.
The market itself has also changed beyond recognition. The merger of Star India and Viacom18 into JioStar has gutted the competitive tension that once sent sports rights prices soaring. Where rival bidders once slugged it out, there is now a single dominant buyer, and it is in no hurry. JioStar has valued the rights at roughly $25m, a full $10m below Fifa’s already-discounted floor price. That gap has so far proved unbridgeable.
Broadcasters are also nursing a ferocious cricket hangover. Between 2022 and 2023, Indian media houses committed well over $10bn to cricket rights alone, covering IPL, ICC events and BCCI domestic fixtures combined. After a binge of that scale, appetite for a football package that delivers a fraction of the ratings, in the dead of night, is close to zero.
The economics of football broadcasting make the maths even harder. Cricket, with its natural breaks every few overs, is an advertiser’s paradise. Football offers a 15-minute halftime and precious little else. Recovering a nine-figure rights fee from a single half-hour ad window is a stretch at the best of times. These are not the best of times: the Indian government’s tightening grip on real-money gaming and gambling advertising has vaporised a category that once underwrote the economics of big sporting events.
Nor is the World Cup an anomaly. Indian Super League valuations have cratered. English Premier League rights have softened across successive cycles. The cooling of football as a broadcast commodity in India is structural, not cyclical.
With the tournament opening on 11th June, Fifa is running out of road. It may yet blink and meet JioStar at $25m. Or it may go direct, streaming the entire tournament on its own platform, Fifa+, or cutting a digital deal with YouTube, and hoping that a generation of Indian football fans finds its way there without a broadcaster to guide them.
Either way, the beautiful game’s Indian chapter is looking decidedly ugly.
