Is Fantasy Sports Legal in India? 2026 Guide

For the full legal background on online gaming law in India, see Online Gaming Legal India 2026.

For nearly a decade, Indian courts treated fantasy sports as games of skill and largely outside the scope of gambling laws. Courts including the Punjab and Haryana High Court (Varun Gumber v. Union Territory of Chandigarh, 2017) and the Supreme Court (which dismissed multiple petitions challenging that ruling) held that selecting players based on statistics, form, and knowledge was a skill-predominant activity protected under Article 19(1)(g) of the Constitution.

That judicial protection is now superseded for real-money formats.

Parliament passed the Promotion and Regulation of Online Gaming Act, 2025 (PROGA), receiving Presidential assent on 22 August 2025. The Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) notified implementing rules on 22 April 2026, which came into force on 1 May 2026.

The critical shift: PROGA defines an online money game as any online game where a user pays a fee or deposits money expecting a monetary or equivalent return - irrespective of whether the game is based on skill, chance, or both. This deliberate language removes the skill-based exemption that previously protected fantasy sports from gambling prohibitions. Real-money fantasy contests - entry fees pooled into prize distributions - fit this definition squarely.

PROGA imposes a blanket prohibition on offering, aiding, or enabling online money games. There is no licensing pathway for real-money fantasy sports under the current framework. Major platforms including Dream11 suspended paid contests around August 2025 following the law's passage.

Even before PROGA, several states had already banned fantasy sports. Those bans remain in place and are now reinforced nationally:

• Andhra Pradesh - The Andhra Pradesh Gaming Act (as amended) imposes a blanket prohibition on all games played for stakes, including skill games. Real-money fantasy sports have been blocked since at least 2020.
• Telangana - The Telangana Gaming Act explicitly prohibits risking money on any event including a game of skill. Real-money fantasy was blocked since the state's 2017 amendment.
• Assam - Gambling laws do not distinguish between skill and chance games; all money games are prohibited.
• Odisha - Comprehensive anti-gambling provisions cover online platforms.
• Tamil Nadu - The Tamil Nadu Online Gaming Authority (TNOGA) framework restricts real-money online games; the Madras High Court upheld these restrictions in June 2025, including Aadhaar-based KYC requirements and a midnight-to-5am gaming ban.

States that previously allowed fantasy sports under the skill-game doctrine - Maharashtra, Karnataka, Delhi, Punjab - are now governed by PROGA's nationwide prohibition.

For state-by-state detail on rummy, poker, and other games alongside fantasy sports, see Rummy, Poker, and Fantasy State Laws.

If you won money on a fantasy sports platform between 1 April 2023 and the platform's suspension of paid contests, those winnings carry tax obligations that do not disappear. GST on deposits applied from 1 October 2023 onward; TDS under Section 194BA applied from 1 April 2023.

TDS under Section 194BA (Income Tax Act): Introduced with effect from 1 April 2023, this section applies to winnings from online games. The platform deducts TDS at 30% on net winnings (withdrawals plus closing balance, minus deposits and opening balance). There is no minimum threshold - even small net winnings attract this deduction. You cannot offset this against standard deductions under Chapter VI-A or against the basic exemption limit.

28% GST on full face value of deposits: From 1 October 2023 until the suspension of real-money contests, online money gaming platforms were required to charge 28% GST on the full face value of each deposit - not on winnings alone. A Rs 1,000 deposit attracted Rs 280 GST, meaning your effective playing balance was Rs 720. This GST was levied on the platform; the burden was typically passed to the user in how the platform structured entry fees.

If you have unresolved TDS credits from these periods, your Form 26AS or Annual Information Statement (AIS) on the Income Tax portal (incometax.gov.in) will reflect what was deducted. You may need to file a return to claim any refund where TDS was deducted in excess.

With PROGA in force, any fantasy sports app that:

• Requires you to deposit real money to join a contest
• Offers cash prizes paid out to your bank account or wallet
• Charges an entry fee pooled into a prize distribution

…is offering an online money game as defined by PROGA, and is doing so without legal authorisation. There is currently no licensing body that can legitimise this.

Free-to-play platforms - where contests have no deposit, no cash prizes, and rewards are non-monetary (rankings, merchandise, bragging rights) - are not covered by the money game prohibition.

If you encounter an app asking for deposits and promising cash winnings, treat it as an illegal operation and do not send money.

Whether the fraud occurred before or after the legal change, the complaint pathways are the same:

1. National Cyber Crime Reporting Portal: File at cybercrime.gov.in. Select “Report Other Cyber Crime,” attach screenshots of transactions, UPI references, and communications. You receive a complaint tracking number immediately.
2. Local police / cyber cell: If the fraud involves large amounts, file an FIR at your nearest police station under the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita provisions on cheating (formerly IPC sections 415-420) and the IT Act 2000 (sections 66C and 66D for identity theft and impersonation).
3. Consumer Forum: If a platform has withheld your money through an unfair trade practice, you can file before the District Consumer Disputes Redressal Commission under the Consumer Protection Act, 2019. Keep all transaction records, screenshots, and written complaint tickets with the platform.
4. Bank escalation: If a fraudulent debit hit your bank account, file a dispute with your bank and escalate to the RBI Ombudsman (rbi.org.in/Scripts/Complaints.aspx) if the bank does not resolve it within 30 days. The RBI's zero-liability framework applies to unauthorised transactions where you did not contribute to the fraud.

Preserve everything in writing: UPI reference numbers, deposit confirmation emails, platform ticket numbers, and a short timeline of what happened and when.

• Screenshots of your account balance, transaction history, and withdrawal request screen.
• UPI transaction IDs, bank debit SMS, or payment gateway confirmation for every deposit.
• Email or in-app receipts confirming contest entry.
• TDS certificates (Form 16A) issued by the platform for winnings - relevant for your income tax return.
• GST invoice from the platform showing the 28% levy on your deposit (for any deposits made October 2023 onward before the suspension).
• Customer support ticket numbers and dates of every exchange with the platform.

A Delhi resident joined a paid fantasy cricket contest in April 2024, depositing Rs 2,000 to enter a league. The platform deducted Rs 560 as the GST-pass-through on the full deposit (28% of Rs 2,000), leaving an effective balance of Rs 1,440. She won Rs 4,500. The platform deducted TDS at 30% on her net winnings (Rs 4,500 minus Rs 2,000 in deposits = Rs 2,500 net), deducting Rs 750, and credited Rs 3,750 to her account. When she went to file her ITR, she found Form 26AS showed Rs 750 TDS - which she could claim as a pre-paid credit against her tax liability for that year. The key lesson: keep your deposit records and TDS certificates, because the tax interaction is not automatically settled by what the app shows you.

Dream11 suspended paid contests after the Promotion and Regulation of Online Gaming Act, 2025 received Presidential assent in August 2025. The platform continues to offer free-to-play fantasy contests. As of June 2026, no real-money fantasy sports platform has received legal authorisation to operate under the PROGA framework, because the law prohibits online money games without a licensing exception for skill-based fantasy contests.

Yes - multiple Supreme Court benches dismissed petitions challenging the skill-based classification of Dream11's format, most recently in 2021 and 2022. But PROGA 2025 overrides that judicial doctrine for purposes of legality. The skill-versus-chance distinction no longer determines whether a game can be played for money. Parliament's prohibition applies to all stakes-based online games regardless of skill content.

Andhra Pradesh, Telangana, Assam, and Odisha had state-level prohibitions before PROGA and those remain in force. Tamil Nadu operates a regulatory framework through the Tamil Nadu Online Gaming Authority (TNOGA) that also restricts real-money online gaming. These state bans now co-exist with - and are reinforced by - the national prohibition.

Yes. Tax obligations from past winnings do not disappear because the platform later became non-operational. Section 194BA (effective 1 April 2023) requires 30% TDS on net winnings, deducted by the platform. Those deductions should appear in your Form 26AS or AIS on incometax.gov.in. You must declare such income under “Income from other sources” in your ITR. If TDS was not deducted (for winnings before April 2023), you are still required to declare and pay tax yourself.

Free-to-play fantasy cricket - where no entry fee is charged and no cash prize is distributed - is not caught by PROGA's money-game prohibition. Several platforms offer such formats. If an app is asking you to deposit real money for a chance to win cash, it is currently illegal to operate that way under PROGA. Do not participate, and do not send money.

File immediately at cybercrime.gov.in (National Cyber Crime Reporting Portal) and obtain a complaint number. Simultaneously, dispute the transaction with your bank if the debit was recent. For amounts under Rs 50 lakh, the District Consumer Disputes Redressal Commission under the Consumer Protection Act, 2019 is a civil route. Keep every transaction record, screenshot, and support ticket. If you need help with RTI to ask a public authority for records related to a registered complaint or investigation, The RTI Playbook explains how to frame such requests.

• Online gaming legal India 2026 - the full legal framework explainer
• Rummy, poker, and fantasy state laws - state-by-state breakdown