Thiruvananthapuram: Poker games, a form of gambling, could soon become legal in Kerala after members of the All India Gambling Federation met the Kerala government seeking a revision to existing norms on gambling.
Federation CEO Ronald Landers and his team met additional chief secretary for home Nalini Netto on the matter. Landers said that he was expecting the government to take a favorable stance in this regard.
Netto said that the representatives of the Federation had come with a prior appointment to petition the government. The government has not given any assurances regarding this, she said. Netto also added that the government had to first consider the issue in detail.
Poker games involve lakhs of rupees and are currently allowed in Nagaland, Karnataka and Bengal. In addition to casinos and clubs, the games are also played online. The government of Nagaland had made the game legal through an amendment last year.
As per the Kerala Games Act 1960, the game is not allowed in the state. However, members of the federation said that a special amendment in 1976 had allowed card games such as 28, 56, 112, and Rummy in the state as long as gambling was not involved.
However, the government said that it did not have copies of this order, which the federation seems to have collected through RTI.
The federation also urged the state to make the games legal because Karnataka and Kolkata High Courts and Bengaluru police have declassified the game from the list of gambling games.
The federation wants the game to be recognized as a skill game. Landers said that in Indian states where the game is allowed, 15 percent of the income was being diverted to the government. He also said that the tourism sector would get a boost if this game is allowed in the state.
Meanwhile, the Intelligence is suspicious that some people who had earlier been involved in lottery fraud are behind the new game. Eight major companies are now conducting the game online and otherwise.
Income from the game in Goa and other states are to the tune of crores and in Goa, the government has made more than Rs 150 crores from casinos alone last year.