Conceptual · Article 9.6

Gaming NFTs.

Q: Are gaming NFTs a good investment?

For most people, no — they are best treated as speculation and entertainment, not investment. A gaming NFT produces no cash flow and no intrinsic value; its price depends entirely on continued demand within one specific game. Every play-to-earn economy tested at scale has collapsed, and when a game loses players or shuts down the asset can fall to zero even though your ownership record survives on the blockchain. If you buy at all, size it as money you can afford to lose in full.

Q: How are gaming NFTs taxed in India?

Gaming NFTs are notified Virtual Digital Assets under Section 2(47A). Gains on sale are taxed at a flat 30% under Section 115BBH, only the cost of acquisition is deductible, and losses cannot be set off against any other income or carried forward. A 1% TDS under Section 194S applies on sale above the ₹10,000 / ₹50,000 thresholds. Play-to-earn token rewards are additionally taxable as income at the time of receipt — most likely as Income from Other Sources at your slab rate on the fair market value. Consult a qualified tax professional, as the treatment of P2E rewards is genuinely unresolved.

Q: Why did play-to-earn and Axie Infinity collapse?

Play-to-earn economies pay rewards in newly minted tokens and depend on a constant inflow of new players buying assets to sustain those token prices. When new-player growth plateaus, token supply keeps rising while demand falls, causing hyperinflationary collapse. Axie Infinity is the canonical case: its SLP reward token lost over 99% of its value between May 2021 and February 2022, daily active users fell from a peak of 2.7 million to roughly 250,000, and the Ronin bridge was drained of $625 million in March 2022. Scholar earnings in Southeast Asia dropped from about ₱10,000 a week to under ₱500.

Q: Can I legally play blockchain games in India after the Online Gaming Act 2025?

It is uncertain and increasingly restrictive. The Promotion and Regulation of Online Gaming Act, 2025 (Presidential assent 22 August 2025) broadly prohibits 'online money games' — any game involving monetary deposits with an expectation of monetary gain. Most play-to-earn games fall within that category because players buy NFT assets with money and earn tokens that have monetary value. The Act also removes the traditional 'predominance of skill' defence, and its scope is under constitutional challenge before the Supreme Court. State-level bans in Telangana, Andhra Pradesh, Assam and Odisha add further restrictions. Obtain legal advice before participating.

Q: What is the difference between play-to-earn and play-and-earn?

Play-to-Earn (P2E) games optimise for token extraction — players participate mainly to earn income, which tends to produce simplistic, repetitive gameplay and unsustainable token economics. Play-and-Earn (PAE) is the post-2023 rebrand: gameplay quality and entertainment come first and earning is incidental and optional. The distinction is substantive. Big Time, the most commercially successful title of the 2023–24 cycle, generated roughly $100 million in revenue without issuing its own utility token at all — a deliberate move to avoid the hyperinflation that destroyed P2E predecessors.

Q: Do I really own a gaming NFT?

You own the on-chain token — a record under your wallet address that no developer can revoke, unlike a traditional in-game purchase which is a revocable licence. But ownership of the record is not the same as ownership of value. If the game's art assets sit on centralised servers and the game shuts down, the NFT persists on-chain pointing at nothing. More fundamentally, the asset's economic worth depends on continued player demand in that one game; blockchain permanence preserves the deed, not the price.

You Own the Asset. The Game Owns Its Value.

Published as on 22 July 2026

A gaming NFT embeds a non-fungible token inside a video-game economy — a character, a plot of virtual land, a weapon, a trading card that a player genuinely owns on-chain and can sell outside the game itself. The promise was "true ownership" and "play-to-earn" income. The reality, tested most brutally by Axie Infinity, is narrower and harsher: a gaming NFT's worth lives or dies with the game. When the players leave, the blockchain faithfully preserves your ownership of an asset nobody wants to buy. In India these are notified Virtual Digital Assets — a flat 30% tax, 1% TDS, and no loss set-off — layered under 28% GST on gaming deposits and the Online Gaming Act, 2025. Treat them as speculation and entertainment, not investment.

2.7M

Axie Peak Daily Users

−99%

SLP Value, 9 Months

$625M

Ronin Bridge Hack

30% Flat

VDA Tax · No Set-Off

Executive Summary · Page 2

Executive Summary · 6 Findings

A gaming NFT is a video-game item — a character, a plot of virtual land, a weapon, a trading card — recorded on a blockchain so the player, not the studio, holds the deed. It answers one seductive question: what if the hours and money you pour into a game could be sold to someone else? The catch is specific and brutal. The deed is permanent; the value is not. It survives only as long as the game does — and most games, and every play-to-earn economy tested at scale so far, do not.

Covers what gaming NFTs are and the token standards behind them, the true-ownership proposition and its limits, the play-to-earn model and its collapse through Axie Infinity and the $625 million Ronin hack, the 2024 Telegram-driven revival and its real scale, India's VDA tax treatment and the unresolved Section 115BBH-versus-115BBJ question, the 28% GST and Online Gaming Act 2025 headwinds, and six questions Indian participants ask.

Key Findings

Utility, not just collectible — but game-bound.

Unlike art NFTs, gaming NFTs are functional in-game assets (characters, land, weapons, cards) with genuine use inside their economies. Recorded under the player's wallet on-chain, they create real secondary markets where time and skill can become tradeable value — a materially different ownership model from a studio-revocable licence.

The value depends entirely on one game surviving.

Blockchain permanence preserves the ownership record — it cannot preserve economic value. When a game loses players or shuts down, its NFTs can fall to zero even as the chain records that you still own them. If art assets sit on centralised servers, the token may point at nothing. This is the single most important fact about the asset class.

Play-to-Earn proved structurally unsustainable.

P2E economies mint reward tokens continuously and depend on new-player inflows to buy them. When growth stalls, supply overwhelms demand and the token hyperinflates. Axie Infinity's SLP lost over 99% of its value in nine months; daily users fell from 2.7 million to roughly 250,000; Southeast Asian "scholars" saw weekly income collapse from ~₱10,000 to under ₱500.

Custody and smart-contract risk is catastrophic, not theoretical.

In March 2022 attackers drained Axie's Ronin bridge of $625 million — 173,600 ETH and 25.5m USDC — by compromising 5 of 9 validator keys. The FBI attributed it to North Korea's Lazarus Group. Bridges, wallets and smart contracts are live attack surfaces; a single breach can wipe out an entire ecosystem's holdings.

India taxes them hard — and mostly prohibits the money games.

As notified VDAs, gaming NFTs face a flat 30% on gains (Section 115BBH), 1% TDS (Section 194S), and no loss set-off or carry-forward. Play-to-earn token rewards are additionally taxable at receipt, likely at slab rates. Above this sit 28% GST on gaming deposits and the Online Gaming Act 2025, which broadly bans "online money games."

Speculation and entertainment — not an investment class.

2024's headline "6.6 million daily users" was inflated by Telegram tap-games like Hamster Kombat (300m+ players tapping a screen). Substantive Web3 gaming is under 1% of global gaming. Genuine signals exist — Big Time earned ~$100m with no token — but the asset generates no cash flow. Size any exposure as money you can lose in full.

At A Glance

Metric	Value	Detail
Asset type	In-game NFTs	Characters / land / cards
Gaming standard	ERC-1155	Batch mint, low gas
Core risk	Game-dependent	Value → 0 if game dies
Axie peak	2.7M DAU	Nov 2021 · $166 AXS
Ronin hack	$625M	Lazarus Group
India tax	30% + 1% TDS	No loss set-off
Money games	Broadly banned	Online Gaming Act 2025
Framing	Speculation	Not investment

Exhibit 01: Axie Infinity — Boom to Bust

Metric	Peak	After Collapse
Daily users	2.7M	~250,000
AXS token	$165.93	Fell sharply
SLP token	$0.3642	−99%
Scholar / week	~₱10,000	<₱500

SLP peak 1 May 2021; DAU peak 2.7m Nov 2021; AXS peak $165.93 on 6 Nov 2021. By February 2022 SLP had lost over 99% of its value and scholar income fell below the Philippine minimum wage — the canonical demonstration that P2E token economies require perpetual new-entrant growth.

The Opening · Page 3

The Opening

Gaming NFTs propose a genuinely new idea. In a traditional game, the skin, sword or character you buy is a licence the studio can revoke, delete or switch off. A gaming NFT records that item on a blockchain under your wallet address — so, in principle, only you can move it, no developer can take it back, and you can sell it to another player on an open market outside the game. For the first time, the hours and money a player pours in become an owned, transferable asset rather than a sunk cost. That is the seductive part, and it is real.

"Blockchain permanence preserves the ownership record. It cannot preserve economic value. When a game's players leave, the chain faithfully records that you own an asset nobody wants to buy — and that record is worth exactly nothing."
The Core Limit

Where it breaks. Ownership of the deed is not ownership of value. Most gaming-NFT worth depends entirely on continued participation in one specific game's economy. If the studio stores its art on centralised servers and shuts the game down, the token persists on-chain pointing at nothing. And even a live token collapses the moment the player base migrates — because the price was never intrinsic; it was demand from the next player.

The 2021–22 test. The play-to-earn boom promised income, not just ownership: earn crypto by playing, cash it out, repeat. Axie Infinity took it to global scale — 2.7 million daily users, a "scholarship" economy supporting families in the Philippines and Indonesia — and then demonstrated the model's fatal flaw. Rewards depended on new entrants; when growth stalled, the token hyperinflated, and a $625 million bridge hack accelerated the fall. That cycle is the reference point for everything that follows.

The Honest Boundary: Gaming NFTs are NOT an investment class — they generate no cash flow and no intrinsic value. They are NOT reliable income — every play-to-earn economy tested at scale has collapsed. They are NOT protected by their blockchain — the chain preserves ownership, not worth. They ARE, at most, discretionary entertainment spending on a game you genuinely enjoy, sized strictly as money you can afford to lose in full.

Structure

Part I

What a Gaming NFT Is & the Ownership Reality

Part II

Play-to-Earn: The Model, Axie & the Ronin Hack

Part III

India: VDA Tax & the Online Gaming Act

Part IV

The Verdict: The 2024 Signal & the Bottom Line

Consider If

✓ You treat it as entertainment spend

✓ Money you can lose in full

✓ You actively play the game

✓ You can meet the VDA tax rules

Do NOT Use If

✕ You are seeking investment returns

✕ You need the money for a real goal

✕ You believe P2E is durable income

✕ You cannot stomach a 100% loss

Part I

What a Gaming NFT Actually Is, and the Ownership It Really Gives You

The token standards that make in-game assets tradeable; how true on-chain ownership differs from a studio licence — and where that ownership stops; the interoperability that was promised and never arrived; and the one rule that governs the whole class: value is game-specific.

Part I · Page 4

The Token Standards

Standard	Nature	Gaming Use
ERC-721	One unique token per asset	Rare, high-value items
ERC-1155	Fungible + non-fungible in one contract	The gaming standard

ERC-721 gives every asset a distinct token ID — right for rare items where individual provenance matters. ERC-1155 is preferred for games: one contract manages thousands of items, enabling batch transfers, far lower gas costs and built-in safety features. A studio can mint a thousand swords and hand them to new players in a single transaction — impractical under ERC-721.

True Ownership — and Its Limits

The Genuine Shift

The asset is recorded under your wallet address, independent of the studio's goodwill. No developer can revoke it, and a real secondary market can form — players who invest time or money can realise it by selling earned assets. This is a materially different model from a revocable in-game licence.

Where Ownership Stops

If the game's art lives on centralised servers and the game shuts, the token persists on-chain pointing at nothing. And economic value depends on continued player demand: the chain preserves the deed, not the price. Ownership of the record is not ownership of worth.

Where the Value Lives — and Goes

Driver	Effect on Value
Active players	Creates demand for assets
New entrants	Sustains token & asset prices
Growth stalls	Supply overwhelms demand
Game shuts down	Value falls toward zero
Players migrate	Ownership survives, worth does not

The original thesis included cross-game portability — a sword from Game A usable in Game B, a skin following you across metaverses. In practice this remains largely fiction. Each chain runs its own protocols; games are closed systems; competing studios have little incentive to share assets. Limited portability exists inside single-publisher ecosystems only.

The one rule to remember: gaming-NFT value is game-specific. It is not diversified by being "on the blockchain," and it does not accrue value over time the way a productive asset does. It is a bet on one game's continued popularity — closer to owning inventory in a single, fashion-driven venue than to owning a security. When the crowd moves on, the record remains and the value does not.

Part II

Play-to-Earn: The Model, Its Collapse, and the $625 Million Hack

Why an economy that pays rewards from new-entrant inflows is fragile by construction; how Axie Infinity ran the experiment to its conclusion; how the Ronin bridge lost $625 million to a state-backed hacking group; and why the industry quietly rebranded to "play-and-earn."

Part II · Page 6

The Model

The Play-to-Earn Promise

Players earn crypto or NFTs of real monetary value by playing — winning battles, breeding creatures, completing quests — and convert those to fiat on an exchange. In 2021–22 the model attracted global attention by offering players in lower-income economies a meaningful income from gaming.

The Structural Flaw

The game mints new reward tokens continuously; new entrants must buy existing players' NFTs and tokens to participate; that inflow sustains prices. When new-player growth plateaus while emissions continue, demand drops and supply keeps rising — hyperinflationary collapse. Fragility is built in, not incidental.

The Ronin Bridge Hack — $625 Million

On 23 March 2022, attackers drained Axie's Ronin sidechain of 173,600 ETH and 25.5m USDC (~$625m). Ronin's bridge needed 5 of 9 validator signatures; a spear-phishing attack captured 4 Sky Mavis keys and a backdoor reached a 5th. The FBI attributed it to North Korea's Lazarus Group. Custody and smart-contract risk, made concrete.

The Human Cost & the Rebrand

The Scholarship Model & Its Collapse

In the Philippines and Indonesia, "managers" bought the required Axies and lent them to "scholars" for a share of earnings (scholars kept 50–70%). At peak, scholars earned ~₱5,000–10,000 a week — above minimum wage — and families relied on it during COVID-19. When the token economics collapsed, weekly income fell below ₱500. Livelihoods built on token incentives vanished.

Axie: The Full Cycle

DAU peaked at 2.7 million (Nov 2021); AXS at $165.93; SLP at $0.3642 (May 2021). Continuous SLP emissions plus stalling growth produced hyperinflation: SLP fell over 99% by February 2022, and DAU dropped to roughly 250,000 by late 2022. The most consequential single test of P2E — and it failed.

"Play-and-Earn" — The Rebrand

By 2023 the industry abandoned "Play-to-Earn," now tied to Ponzi-adjacent dynamics, for "Play-and-Earn": gameplay first, earning incidental. The distinction is real — P2E optimised for extraction produced thin, repetitive games; PAE titles aim to compete on fun, with earning optional. Whether that survives contact with token markets is the open question.

Part III

India: How Gaming NFTs Are Taxed, and How Heavily They Are Regulated

Why gaming NFTs are notified Virtual Digital Assets — a flat 30%, 1% TDS and no loss set-off; the unresolved question of how play-to-earn rewards are taxed; and the wall of 28% GST, the Online Gaming Act 2025, FIU-IND registration and state bans that now sits over the money-game economy.

Part III · Page 8

The VDA Tax Regime (FY 2025-26)

Notified VDAs — 30% Flat, 1% TDS

Gaming NFTs are VDAs under Section 2(47A). Gains on transfer are taxed at a flat 30% under Section 115BBH — regardless of holding period or your slab. A 1% TDS under Section 194S applies on sale, above the ₹10,000 / ₹50,000 thresholds. Only the cost of acquisition is deductible; gas fees and platform charges are not.

No Loss Set-Off — Every Loss Is Permanent

Section 115BBH restrictions apply in full: a loss on one gaming NFT cannot be set off against gains on another NFT, another VDA, or any other income — and cannot be carried forward. In a class where total losses are common, this is punitive: you are taxed on winners and left alone with losers.

Event	Tax Treatment
Sell at a gain	30% flat (115BBH)
On every sale	1% TDS (194S)
Loss on sale	No set-off, no carry-forward
P2E token reward	Taxable at receipt (slab, IFOS)
Deductible	Cost only — no fees/gas

The Unresolved Question & the Regulatory Wall

115BBH vs 115BBJ — P2E Rewards

For tokens earned by playing, it is unclear whether Section 115BBH (VDA transfers) or Section 115BBJ (net winnings from online games, with 194BA year-end TDS) governs. No CBDT circular resolves it. Working principle, by analogy to staking/airdrops: receipt taxed as Income from Other Sources at slab on fair market value; later sale taxed at 30% on the gain. Get professional advice.

28% GST + the Online Gaming Act 2025

28% GST applies to deposits made to play online money games (from Oct 2023). The Promotion and Regulation of Online Gaming Act, 2025 (assent 22 Aug 2025) broadly prohibits "online money games" and removes the old "predominance of skill" defence. Most P2E games fall inside that ban. The Act faces constitutional challenge before the Supreme Court.

FIU-IND, State Bans & the Ecosystem

P2E platforms handling INR conversion or custody are VASPs and must register with FIU-IND under the 2023 PMLA extension. Blanket real-money-gaming bans in Telangana, Andhra Pradesh, Assam and Odisha may extend to P2E. Nazara Technologies has committed $100m to Web3/VR/AI gaming (including a 15.86% stake in STAN), but the environment is among the world's most restrictive for P2E.

Part IV

The Verdict

Ownership of the deed. Not ownership of the value.

Part IV: The Verdict · Page 10

30-Second Summary

A gaming NFT is a blockchain-recorded in-game asset — a character, plot of land, weapon or card — that a player genuinely owns and can trade outside the game. That ownership is real and new. But the asset's value depends entirely on one game's continued popularity: blockchain permanence preserves the record, never the price. The play-to-earn model that popularised the class proved structurally unsustainable, demonstrated by Axie Infinity's SLP losing over 99% of its value and the $625 million Ronin hack.

2024 offered genuine signal alongside noise. Big Time earned roughly $100 million with no token at all, proving Web3 games can make money on gameplay merit; Pixels showed real engagement at 1m+ daily users. But the headline "6.6 million daily users" was inflated by Telegram tap-games, and substantive Web3 gaming remains under 1% of a global gaming audience of 3.2 billion. In India, a flat 30% VDA tax with no loss set-off, 28% GST, and the Online Gaming Act 2025's broad ban on money games make participation both expensive and legally precarious.

"The blockchain answers one question honestly — do I own this asset? Yes. It stays silent on the other — is it worth anything? That depends on a game and a crowd, both of which can leave overnight. A gaming NFT is entertainment you might resell, not an investment that compounds. Confusing the two is the whole mistake."
The Final Orientation

The Bottom Line: If you buy a gaming NFT, do it because you enjoy the game — treat the token as entertainment spending you can lose in full, never as a savings or income strategy. Assume the value can go to zero when the players do, and that no play-to-earn economy tested at scale has escaped that fate. In India, budget for a flat 30% tax with no loss relief, factor the 1% TDS and possible slab tax on rewards, and take legal advice given the Online Gaming Act 2025. For any real financial goal, this is the wrong instrument.

ADWIZR · July 2026

Decision Rules

At Most, Use As

✓ Entertainment spend on a game you play

✓ Money you can lose entirely

✓ A tiny, ring-fenced speculation

✓ With VDA tax fully accounted for

Misuse Destroys Value

✕ As an investment or savings plan

✕ As "play-to-earn" income

✕ For a goal you cannot lose

✕ Ignoring the Online Gaming Act

Three Misconceptions

What Participants Get Wrong

(1) "The blockchain protects my value." It protects the record, not the price — which dies with the game. (2) "Play-to-earn is a real income." Every scaled P2E economy has collapsed on new-entrant dependence. (3) "I can offset my losses." Under Section 115BBH, VDA losses cannot be set off or carried forward at all.

The 2024 Signal, Read Honestly

Real Revenue vs Inflated Metrics

Big Time: ~$100m revenue, no token — gameplay-first design works. Hamster Kombat: 300m+ "players" tapping a screen — engagement, not gaming. The 6.6m daily-user headline (+308%) is mostly Telegram tap-games; substantive Web3 gaming is ~0.2% of global gaming. Signal exists, but it is small and easily overstated.

30%

VDA tax

+1% TDS, no set-off

$625M

Ronin hack

Lazarus Group, 2022

Game-tied

Value

Zero if the game dies

Investor FAQ

Questions Indian Participants Ask

Six questions, answered directly.

Investor FAQ · Page 12

Frequently Asked Questions

Q1 Are gaming NFTs a good investment?

For most people, no — they are best treated as speculation and entertainment, not investment. A gaming NFT produces no cash flow and no intrinsic value; its price depends entirely on continued demand within one specific game. Every play-to-earn economy tested at scale has collapsed, and when a game loses players or shuts down the asset can fall to zero even though your ownership record survives on the blockchain. If you buy at all, size it as money you can afford to lose in full.

Q2 How are gaming NFTs taxed in India?

Gaming NFTs are notified Virtual Digital Assets under Section 2(47A). Gains on sale are taxed at a flat 30% under Section 115BBH, only the cost of acquisition is deductible, and losses cannot be set off against any other income or carried forward. A 1% TDS under Section 194S applies on sale above the ₹10,000 / ₹50,000 thresholds. Play-to-earn token rewards are additionally taxable as income at the time of receipt — most likely as Income from Other Sources at your slab rate on the fair market value. Consult a qualified tax professional, as the treatment of P2E rewards is genuinely unresolved.

Q3 Why did play-to-earn and Axie Infinity collapse?

Play-to-earn economies pay rewards in newly minted tokens and depend on a constant inflow of new players buying assets to sustain those token prices. When new-player growth plateaus, token supply keeps rising while demand falls, causing hyperinflationary collapse. Axie Infinity is the canonical case: its SLP reward token lost over 99% of its value between May 2021 and February 2022, daily active users fell from a peak of 2.7 million to roughly 250,000, and the Ronin bridge was drained of $625 million in March 2022. Scholar earnings in Southeast Asia dropped from about ₱10,000 a week to under ₱500.

Q4 Can I legally play blockchain games in India after the Online Gaming Act 2025?

It is uncertain and increasingly restrictive. The Promotion and Regulation of Online Gaming Act, 2025 (Presidential assent 22 August 2025) broadly prohibits "online money games" — any game involving monetary deposits with an expectation of monetary gain. Most play-to-earn games fall within that category because players buy NFT assets with money and earn tokens that have monetary value. The Act also removes the traditional "predominance of skill" defence, and its scope is under constitutional challenge before the Supreme Court. State-level bans in Telangana, Andhra Pradesh, Assam and Odisha add further restrictions. Obtain legal advice before participating.

Q5 What is the difference between play-to-earn and play-and-earn?

Play-to-Earn (P2E) games optimise for token extraction — players participate mainly to earn income, which tends to produce simplistic, repetitive gameplay and unsustainable token economics. Play-and-Earn (PAE) is the post-2023 rebrand: gameplay quality and entertainment come first and earning is incidental and optional. The distinction is substantive. Big Time, the most commercially successful title of the 2023–24 cycle, generated roughly $100 million in revenue without issuing its own utility token at all — a deliberate move to avoid the hyperinflation that destroyed P2E predecessors.

Q6 Do I really own a gaming NFT?

You own the on-chain token — a record under your wallet address that no developer can revoke, unlike a traditional in-game purchase which is a revocable licence. But ownership of the record is not the same as ownership of value. If the game's art assets sit on centralised servers and the game shuts down, the NFT persists on-chain pointing at nothing. More fundamentally, the asset's economic worth depends on continued player demand in that one game; blockchain permanence preserves the deed, not the price.

Key Terms & Definitions

Gaming NFT

A non-fungible token representing a unique in-game asset — a character, plot of virtual land, weapon or trading card — recorded on a blockchain under the player's wallet. Unlike a studio-issued licence, it cannot be revoked by the developer and can be traded on secondary markets outside the game.

Play-to-Earn (P2E)

A blockchain gaming model in which players earn cryptocurrency or NFTs of real monetary value through gameplay, convertible to fiat. It depends on continuous new-player inflows to sustain token prices; when growth stalls, reward-token supply overwhelms demand and the economy collapses.

ERC-1155

The multi-token standard preferred for gaming: a single smart contract manages both fungible and non-fungible tokens, enabling batch minting and transfers, lower gas costs and built-in safety features. It lets a studio issue thousands of items in one transaction.

Ronin Bridge Hack

The March 2022 theft of ~$625 million (173,600 ETH and 25.5m USDC) from Axie Infinity's Ronin sidechain, after attackers compromised 5 of 9 validator keys. Attributed by the FBI to North Korea's Lazarus Group — the definitive example of custody and bridge risk in blockchain gaming.

Section 115BBH

The Income Tax provision taxing gains on transfer of Virtual Digital Assets — including gaming NFTs — at a flat 30%, allowing only the cost of acquisition as a deduction and permitting no set-off or carry-forward of losses against any income.

Online Gaming Act 2025

The Promotion and Regulation of Online Gaming Act, 2025 (assent 22 August 2025), which broadly prohibits "online money games," permits only e-sports and non-monetary social games, and removes the "predominance of skill" defence. Most play-to-earn games fall within its prohibition; the Act is under constitutional challenge.