India is presiding over the G20 for the first time in the organization's history and is using this welcome opportunity to strengthen its global leadership role by presenting the nation's unique perspectives to the world.

In a culmination to the presidency, New Delhi is receiving the most important global leaders for the 2023 Summit on the background of a successful landing on the Moon South Pole during the recent BRICS Summit plus a launch of a Solar observatory.

All of this is raising the prestige and influence of the country and its confidence to push its national interests in the global agenda. However, despite being just the fourth nation to have put a working machine on Earth's natural satellite, not all Indian achievements bring comfort or inspire awe.

Only India of All Members has No Stance on Gambling, Experts Point Out

A KPMG report from 2019 estimates the size of Bharat's illegal gambling and sports betting market at $88 bn in 2012, growing at a CAGR of 7% to reach $130 bn by 2018. Now, standing in the global spotlight years later, India still pays no attention to this "elephant in the room" and appears as the single G20 member that has no clear policy on gambling, industry experts have pointed out.

"Out of the larger prominent countries part of the G20, India is the only nation currently struggling to take a stance on online gambling," states Felicia Wijkander, Editor-in-Chief at prominent Indian casino comparison platform SevenJackpots.

Some of the countries, particularly EU members like Sweden, Denmark and many others, have decided to regulate their online and offline gambling markets, Felicia points out. "The UK has one of the strictest liberal gambling regulations globally, resulting in one of the world’s lowest numbers of gambling addictions (0.5%)," she writes and adds that "the US is busy rolling out various types of regulations across the states."

On the other hand, there are the G20 countries that have banned gambling either for religious reasons like Saudi Arabia and Indonesia, or for political considerations. In contrast to jurisdictions that have legalized licensed gambling, countries "where politics have decided the illegality of gambling (South Korea and China), gambling problems are higher than within European, regulated countries (5.5% for South Korea, 2.5-4% for China), Felicia Wijkander observes.

And then, there is India, a country that recently amended its legislation to "clarify" that gambling owes 28% GST and 30% TDS, but has never implemented any regulation on the national level. "Instead, the responsibility has been put on private actors to apply for “Self-Regulatory organization status,” which, without a revamped national gambling law, won’t be able to do much else than focus on categorizing various real money games as games of skill or chance."

Now Is the Time to Show True Leadership

"India’s presidency of the G20 is not just a time for India to showcase her ancient, medieval and modern history, culture and contribution to the world but also a time for her to take the lead in environmental, regulatory and technological matters," writes Uday Walia, partner at leading Indian lawyer firm Touchstone Partners.

"India has the expertise, the sensitivity and inherent sense of fairness, equality and sustainability to direct the formulation of regulatory matters that the world has struggled to form a consensus on. Cryptocurrency and more particularly gambling and betting," he points out.

“India must take the lead on regulating gambling and betting. We need to create an environment of responsible gaming, gambling and betting. We need to address the serious associated problems with money laundering, terror financing (for cryptocurrencies in particular), online security, fraud, underage gambling and addiction,” Uday Walia urges.