Bulletin of the month

Real Money Gaming Operators Services To Be Streamlined By State Ministers

he State Government

Tof Gujarat has formed a 7-member panel consisting of state ministers for better valuation of services by online gaming portals, casinos and racecourses for imposing the Goods and Services tax (GST).

The panel was set up by Nitin Patel, Gujarat’s Deputy Chief Minister and it will look into the changes that are necessary in the legal provision to get a better valuation from the services provided by real money gaming (RMG) industry.

The committee will also be looking into the valuation of other services like the lottery. The panellists include Gujarat Deputy Chief Minister Nitin Patel, Maharashtra Deputy Chief Minister, Ajit Pawar, Goa Transport Minister, Mauvin Godinho, Karnataka Home Minister, Basavaraj Bommai, Tamil Nadu Finance Minister, P Thiagarajan, West Bengal Finance Minister, Amit Mitra and Arunachal Pradesh Deputy Chief Minister, Chowna Mein.

Talking about the panel, Rajat Mohan, Associate Senior Partner of AMRG said, “During the COVID-19 induced pandemic, the online gaming sector and the casinos have seen a massive user traction and flow of investments which poses a big challenge for the entire real money gaming (RMG) industry. In our country, online gaming companies are in nascent stages and this has led to multiple unresolved issues around taxation and valuation.”

He further added, “Now that a Group of Ministers (GoM) has been formed, the uncertainty surrounding the valuation of services like casinos, online gaming companies, and racecourses can be resolved.”

Within six months the panel is expected to submit a report to the GST council.

POKER Chris Moneymaker Will Be Suing PayPal

Famous poker player Chris Moneymaker will be suing PayPal, an online payment processing company. Moneymaker’s attorney, Eric Bensamochan mentioned in a press release that due to a breach of contract, unjust enrichment and bad faith from PayPal they will be suing the company. As per reports, more than ₹12,000 was confiscated from the PayPal account of Moneymaker. The pro took to Twitter to spread the message and tweeted, “So, PayPal froze my account last year and said I could access my money in 180 days. Well they straight up stole the money! Money out of my account.”

MPL Donates `5 Crore Virat Kohli –

Anushka Sharma’s Initiative

Mobile Premier League (MPL) donated `5 crore to #InThisTogether initiative started by Virat Kohli and actress Anushka Sharma. The duo started this campaign in partnership with Ketto, a crowd-funding platform. The couple launched this #InThisTogether initiative on 7 May. Both of them shared a video on social media urging their fans to support them in their initiative. In a single day, the campaign raised around `3.60 Crore in a single day including the `2 Crores that the dynamic duo contributed for the cause.

So far, the cricketer and the actress managed to raise around `11 Crore. The funds raised through this initiative were supposed to be donated to ACT Grants, a non-profit organization that is actively focused on resolving oxygen shortage problems in the country.

ESPORTS

Battlegrounds Mobile India Gains More Than 20 Million Pre-registrations

Battlegrounds Mobile India, developed by Krafton has received over 20 million pre-registrations in less than 20 days. PUBG Mobile was banned in the country last year over security issues. The brand had a huge fan base from first and it motivated the developer to launch Battlegrounds Mobile India to replace PUBG Mobile. There are claims that the game is the exact imitation of PUBG with a few minor tweaks. Krafton had announced pre-registrations for the game on Google Play store, which kick-started on 18 May 2021. Within 24 hours, the game received a whopping 7.6 million registrations. Within a span of just 16 days, Krafton managed to receive over 20 million pre-registrations.

RUMMY

Despite IPL Suspension, User Base Of RummyCulture Grew By 30%

The user base of RummyCulture shot up by 30% despite the sudden suspension of the 2021 Indian Premier League (IPL). Fantasy sports operators witnessed a huge drop in new users once the IPL was suspended due to the COVI-19 issue. Amit Kushawa, Head of Brand Strategy at Gameskraft said, “Especially this year, we didn’t notice any drop in the number of users or sessions per user. On the contrary, we noticed a jump in the number of players, and this might be attributed to our brand campaign which helped us increase awareness and trust for the platform.” As per the Q1 financial reports of RummyCulture in 2021, the number of users had spiked by over 30% year-on-year (Y-o-Y) basis as compared to 2020 Q1.