WinZO moves HC seeking declaration of online games as “games of skills”

Consequently, the declaration would entitle WinZO to seek availability of its platform and games hosted thereon on the defendant Google’s Play Store, WinZO claims. As per the plea, WinZO develops games of skill which are offered to users for real money through its application.

Appearing for WinZO, advocate Abhishek Malhotra submitted, “The games I have made available are games of skill. Google Play Store had the biggest market. They have a policy wherein only two specific games were made available online – Daily Fantasy Sports (DFS) and Rummy and other online games whether or not they were games of skill were not allowed”. He submitted that Google is saying that “they don’t decide that this is a game of skill” or not.

The plea states that as of January 2022, Google’s developer program policy did not permit placement of applications that enable or facilitates users to wager, stake or participate using real money to obtain real world monetary valued prize on Google Play Store.

However, on September 7, 2022, as a pilot program, Google updated the developer program policy to allow placement of applications that offer games of Daily Fantasy Sports and Rummy for September 28, 2022, till September 28, 2023.

The plea states that the primary reason given by defendants for not allowing other games of skill is that DFS/Rummy have specially received recognition from court of law as games of skill.

Malhotra submitted that ordinarily his client should be allowed to onboard his games on a platform where games of skill are permitted. He said his clients had carried out a statistical analysis that these games are games of skill.

The court, however, noted that Google was not a contesting party and questioned if a declaration can be granted when Google was not contesting as a defendant.

For Google, senior advocate Sajan Poovayya submitted that according to his client’s policy, there are no games allowed to be on-boarded on its platform where money comes in or goes out as it leads to people losing money.

Poovayya argued that his client thereafter launched a pilot project wherein two games to be onboarded Daily Fantasy Sports and Rummy, however there “was no assertion that all games will be allowed”.

“I’m a platform, no one can ask me to onboard games, whether skill or chance,” Poovayya said.

“On April 6, the amended IT (Intermediary Guidelines and Digital Media Ethics Code) Rules, 2021 made a self-regulatory mechanism, wherein anyone can go to the self-regulatory authority and get a certification under the IT Rules, that this game is not gambling. But even if certification is issued, Google is not obligated to onboard because it is a private platform,” he added.

He submitted that the declaration sought is not mandated against Google and WinZO should go under the amended Rules wherein intermediary may decide or not decide to onboard. “A suit of this nature could not have been framed,” Poovayya submitted.

Justice Narula thereafter noted Malhotra’s submission that the lawsuit was filed on March 28 and subsequently MEITY has issued a notification on April 6. “Counsel for the Plaintiff request for a short accommodation to take instructions. List on April 24,” the court said.

Apart from declaration for WinZO’s games such as Bubble Shooter 2, Candy Match, Knife Up and others as games of skill, the suit seeks a direction to Google to consider onboarding WinZO’s games in a fair and unbiased manner.