The Andhra Pradesh government 2 days back passed a bill in the legislative assembly banned the use of online games, citing the increased number of suicides as the reason.
Home Minister Mekatoti Sucharita stated that this new law was brought to prevent online gambling by saying, “Many internet websites which claim to provide gambling services are not authentic and there are no regulatory measures to check the legitimacy of these sites.That makes it really easy for these sites to defraud the customers and it also raises a lot of security and privacy issues.”
Chief Minister Jagan Mohan Reddy also expressed his concern that increasing suicides and debts among youngsters was the reason why they were amending the AP Gaming Act, 1974.
The amendment states that a first time offender will be fined a maximum of Rs 5000 with a prison term of 1 year, with repeat offenders spending 2 years behind the bars with fines of Rs 10000. It remains to be seen if this bill is indeed put into full effect and what impact it will have among gamers in Andhra Pradesh.
Source: NDTV
