India, Aug. 26 -- Parliament, on Thursday, passed the Promotion and Regulation of Online Gaming Act, 2025, which seeks to regulate e-sports and online social games, while imposing a complete ban on online money games involving monetary stakes. A reading of the Act shows it is largely modelled on Tamil Nadu's Online Gambling Act of 2022, a landmark legislation which holistically regulates online gaming and gambling in Tamil Nadu. The Act is purportedly framed by Parliament in exercise of its legislative power under Entry 31, which deals with "Posts & telegraphs; telephones; wireless; broadcasting and other like forms of communication". Though the object of the Act is indisputably laudable, a closer look at its provisions reveals that it transgresses into legislative fields reserved exclusively for the states and is yet another instance of federal overreach by the Union. The Seventh Schedule of the Constitution contains three lists - the Union List, the State List and the Concurrent List - demarcating the legislative fields between Parliament and the state legislatures. The Constitution provides that the state cannot legislate on the subjects in the Union List. Similarly, the Union cannot legislate on subjects in the State List. The Act, in pith and substance, regulates the activities of betting and gambling and sports and entertainment activities, which are subjects exclusively reserved for the state legislatures under Entries 33 and 34 of the State List. Parliament does not have the legislative competence on these subjects, and the attempt to bring it within its competence by invoking Entry 31 of List I stands on constitutionally thin ice, and will not withstand legal scrutiny. The argument that these online gaming activities can be regulated only by the Union under Entry 31 List I did not find favour with the courts on earlier occasions, when the Tamil Nadu Act was challenged by the online gaming companies. The Madras High Court in online gaming cases in Junglee Games (2022) and All India Gaming Federation (2023) upheld the competence of the state legislature to regulate online gaming activities under Entries 6 and 34 of List II. The Act regulates betting and gambling, and sports and entertainment activities, and merely because they are played online would not alter their character as far as legislative competence to regulate the activity is concerned. To hold otherwise would allow Parliament to subsume most subjects of the State List on the pretext that the activity is now being conducted through digital platforms, thereby unsettling the delicate federal balance envisaged by the Constitution. For instance, State List subjects such as "markets and fairs" now also operate on digital platforms and "public health" is increasingly mediated through online tele-medicine platforms, and it would be unconstitutional to contend that as these activities are being carried out online, it would be Parliament which would have competence to regulate these activities. By legislating on matters that lie squarely within the competence of state legislatures, Parliament has transgressed the constitutionally allocated powers and violated federal principles. The Act is a colourable legislation given, by means of the present Act, Parliament seeks to do indirectly what it is constitutionally barred from doing directly. The act of the Union in legislating where only states may tread poses a serious threat to constitutional federalism, and skews the distribution of powers in favour of the Union government. This Act must not be seen as an isolated aberration but as part of a broader and disquieting trend of the Union executive encroaching upon the federal autonomy of the states. Such usurpations destroy the federal fabric of the nation, undermine state autonomy and reduce them to mere implementers of the policies of the Union government. This is not to say that the harms caused by online money gaming should go unchecked; addiction, financial ruin, and suicides are lived tragedies in households across India. The situation demands urgent action, but the response must remain constitutionally grounded, such as empowering and encouraging state legislatures to frame robust legal regimes, or by building consensus for legislation under Article 252 with the consent of the states. An instructive precedent can be found in Tamil Nadu's Act, which lays down a comprehensive framework and demonstrates how States, acting within their constitutional domain, can respond effectively to the adverse effects of online betting and gambling. Perhaps, the Union can do better by not gambling on an unconstitutional regulatory framework....