Legal

Is it legal to play rummy in India?

Rummy is a game of skill. Indian laws prohibit any gaming or gambling which is purely a game of chance. The Public Gambling Act, which regulates the gambling in India specifically excludes ‘games of skills’ from its purview. Section 12 of this Act states that “nothing in this Act shall apply to games of mere skill wherever played”.

The Hon’ble Supreme Court in State of Andhra Pradesh v. K Satyanarayana & Ors 1968 AIR 825 has ruled that ‘Rummy is a game of skill’. The relevant portion of the Supreme Court Judgement is reproduced as below;

"Rummy, on the other hand, requires certain amount of skill because the fall of the cards has to be memorised and the building up of Rummy requires considerable skill in holding and discarding cards. We cannot, therefore, say that the game of Rummy is a game of entire chance. It is mainly and preponderantly a game of skill. The chance in Rummy is of the same character as the chance in a deal at a game of bridge."

Further the Hon’ble Supreme Court reiterated this position in Dr K R Lakshmanan v. State of Tamilnadu 1996 AIR 1153;

"A game of skill, on the other hand - although the element of chance necessarily cannot be entirely eliminated --is one in which success depends principally upon the superior knowledge, training, attention, experience and adroitness of the player. Golf, chess and even Rummy are considered to be games of skill. The Courts have reasoned that there are few games, if any, which consist purely of chance or skill, and as such a game of chance is one in which the element of chance predominates over the element of skill, and a game of skill is one in which the element of skill predominates over the element of chance. It is the dominant element --"skill" or "chance" -- which determines the character of the game."