Maharashtra police official suspended after big online gaming win

BBC News:

An Indian police official has been suspended from service after he won 15m rupees ($180,310, £149,009) on a fantasy sports platform.

Somnath Zende, a police sub-inspector posted in Maharashtra state’s Pune district, won the money while playing Dream 11, an online fantasy league.

Authorities say he was suspended for breaching the police code of conduct.

Mr Zende has refuted the claim. He’s due to face a departmental inquiry.

The police department in Pune’s Pimpri Chinchwad area, under which Mr Zende works, told BBC Marathi that he was suspended for playing the game without permission and for giving media interviews in his uniform.

Mr Zende, however, said he was being treated “unfairly”.

The police official said he began playing games on Dream 11 last month. On 10 October, he won the 15m-rupee prize money after winning a game on the platform.

Dream 11 calls itself a “game of skill” and cites a 2021 Supreme Court ruling on its website to say that its platform is exempt from the country’s gambling law.

Gambling is illegal in India but some in the gaming industry argue that the practice is different from “online skill-based gaming”, where the element of skill outweighs the element of chance.