Chennai,  An influential association, representing thousands of Indian esports athletes and skill gamers, has made a representation to the Tamil Nadu government to recognise skill games as a distinct sport and not club it along with gambling. Two Indian chess prodigies have also weighed in with their support.

The Esports Players Welfare Association (EPWA), said in the representation that the TN government should provide a safe harbour for professional, amateur and casual online skill gamers as exemption from the ambit of any state-related gambling or gaming legislations.

This has come in the backdrop of a controversy that has broken out in Tamil Nadu around rummy and other skill games. The Tamil Nadu government constituted a committee under the chairmanship of Justice (Retd.) K. Chandru for advising on enacting fresh legislation on online games. The committee's report is under the active consideration of the state government.

Further, the government has invited inputs from various stakeholders, like the general public, parents, teachers, gamers, social activists, gaming service providers on the proposed litigation on online games.

Two Indian chess prodigies from India have also lent their weight to this plea. Grandmaster Ankit Rajpara said, "The Central government needs to take some action with regards to these arbitrary bans. In the past the Central government has given comfort to players in stakeholder meetings that we will not be treated as criminals. However, state governments continue to do the opposite."

Rathanvel VS, who was recently third at the prestigious Andorra Chess Open said, "In the past, when the Tamil Nadu government banned online skill-based gaming, various chess players were not able to participate in tournaments. These tournaments help us fund our coaching, and treating chess players the same way as gamblers by a state that has over 30 grandmasters and just hosted the Chess Olympiad does not make sense."

Shivani Jha, director, EPWA said, "Multiple legislations and putting skill-based games in the same bucket as gambling is leading to criminalisation of skill-based players. While India is participating in international tournaments and developers are making new games, it is imperative for the state to regulate online skill-based gaming. Moreover, courts have repeatedly pronounced judgments stating the state government can only make laws on online gambling and not gaming, this ends up putting players at risk and equating them with gamblers and criminals."

Shivani Jha recently led a delegation of esports athletes and skill gamers for a special meeting with Rajeev Chandrashekhar, the Minister of State for Electronics and Information Technology. India has approximately 150,000 professional and semi-professional esports players and over 400 million online gamers. The Indian team for DOTA 2 won a bronze medal at the Commonwealth Esports Championships 2022 conducted as part of CWG in Birmingham.