The Gambler as Consumer: Protection of Rights Within the Indian Digital Gaming Market

Abstract

The rapid expansion of India's digital gaming industry has transformed online gaming into one of the country's fastest-growing digital markets. While technological innovation has increased accessibility and commercial opportunities, it has simultaneously created significant challenges relating to consumer protection, transparency, and algorithmic accountability. Traditional Indian gambling jurisprudence, primarily derived from the Public Gambling Act, 1867, was developed to regulate physical gambling establishments rather than sophisticated online platforms driven by artificial intelligence, behavioural analytics, and personalized marketing. Consequently, the existing legal framework inadequately addresses the rights of users who increasingly function as consumers purchasing digital gaming services rather than merely participants in gambling activities. This paper argues that the legal discourse should shift from determining the legality of gambling to recognizing gamblers as consumers entitled to statutory protection under the Consumer Protection Act, 2019. Applying behavioural economics, the paper demonstrates how online gaming platforms exploit predictable cognitive biases including loss aversion, present bias, sunk cost fallacy, optimism bias, and the near-miss effect through algorithmically designed interfaces. Such practices generate substantial information asymmetry between platforms and users, undermining informed consumer choice and fair contractual relationships. The study further examines how dark patterns, personalized targeting, and opaque algorithmic decision-making may constitute unfair trade practices and unfair contracts under the Consumer Protection Act, 2019. Comparative analysis with regulatory approaches adopted in the United Kingdom and the European Union demonstrates that consumer-centric regulation emphasizing algorithmic transparency, mandatory disclosures, affordability checks, and platform accountability provides a more effective framework than traditional criminal prohibition. The paper proposes the establishment of a specialized Gaming Ombudsman under the Central Consumer Protection Authority, mandatory algorithmic audits, standardized disclosure requirements, and legally enforceable rights to self-exclusion. It concludes that recognising gamblers as consumers represents a necessary evolution of Indian consumer jurisprudence capable of balancing digital innovation with constitutional values of fairness, transparency, and consumer welfare.