Flutter’s Junglee Games Loses Court Bid to Overturn India’s Online Gaming Ban

India’s Supreme Court has rejected Junglee Games’ challenge to the country’s online gambling ban, leaving Flutter Entertainment’s Indian unit with no legal route to reopen the market for real-money online games. For PSPs and acquirers, the useful part is simple: a sector that had been live, debated, and apparently still litigable is now being treated as closed by the court.

1. Junglee Games challenged the government’s online gambling ban, which came into effect in May this year and was approved in 2025. The case focused on state-level laws in Tamil Nadu and Karnataka, both of which prohibit real-money online games, including games based on skill.
2. Junglee’s argument was familiar enough: skill-based games should not be treated the same as chance-based gambling. The Supreme Court disagreed, saying that betting on the outcome can turn skill-based games into gambling and that betting on games of skill does not enjoy immunity.
3. The ruling means the ban remains in place for products that relied on the line between skill and chance, which was the commercial basis for much of the Indian iGaming sector. In other words, the legal distinction operators were leaning on did not survive the court’s view of wagering behavior.
4. The impact is already visible on the operator side. Flutter Entertainment, Junglee Games’ owner, was forced to lay off roughly 350 employees after the changes.
5. The legal fight is not necessarily finished. Other gaming companies have taken the matter to court, questioning whether such a broad ban is constitutional, but Junglee’s attempt to overturn the restriction has now failed.

India moved before Brazil did in shutting down an online gaming market that had only recently taken shape. Brazil’s fresh online gaming market ended less than two years after launch, prompting many operators to close local offices and reminding payment providers that “new market” and “stable market” are not the same thing when regulators decide to redraw the line.