Online rummy that should be stopped

Gambling has been around since the time of Mahabharata. Obsession with gambling was the only weakness of Dharmaputra, who was the breeding ground of all virtues. That in turn resulted in the pawning of property, money, kingdom, brothers and even his own wife and finally the exile of the Pandavas. Duryodhana defeated the Dharmaputra through deceit with the support of Shakuni. Similarly, Pushkara defeated Nala with the help of Kali through trickery.

This gambling delusion can enslave individuals to the point that no matter how much loss they incur, they will not back down. Gambling continues to exist in different forms even in this modern age. It has always been the nature of gambling to throw the person who indulges in it into the depths of debt. Around 20 people have already committed suicide in Kerala after losing several lakhs to online rummy. Gambling operators earned crores of money online even when all other establishments were closed during the Covid period. After initially winning money and getting hooked on rummy, the players are often seen continuously losing money when they continue the game that involves large sums of money. When a young player runs out of money in his own account, he tends to proceed with the game by providing the account details of his parents. Following this, the gambling companies will withdraw money from the accounts of the parents. There are also gambling companies that offer players money to play online without any of this. Later, goons of such companies would come to the houses of the players to collect the money along with interest.

Many people keep their gambling addiction a secret. Hence, relatives, friends, etc. of a person may come to know about his addiction only after he commits suicide. Online rummy cannot be prohibited under existing law. The state government had banned online rummy in February 2021 without studying the law properly. The gambling companies then approached the High Court against this. The Supreme Court has ruled that Rummy was a game of skill and not a game of chance. Online Rummy is included as a game of skill as per Section 14 of the Kerala Gaming Act. The government should have introduced the ban after changing this through new legislation. It should be checked whether those in the legal department did not know about this. The High Court struck down the ban as it was against the law. Thus the politicians got an opportunity to claim that although the government banned online rummy, the court overturned the decision. It can also be suspected that this was done to help online gambling companies. Anyway, with the increase in suicides of young people and the complaints of those losing money and falling into the debt trap, the government has apparently initiated efforts to ban online rummy by introducing a new law amendment. The recommendation given by the state DGP to the Home Department in this regard has been forwarded to the Law Department. Attention should be paid to amending the law by closing all loopholes. Online rummy is a menace that needs to be stopped no matter what.