The Maharashtra Government vide Maharashtra Act No. I Of 2024 dated 03.01.2024, has notified the Maharashtra Goods and Services Tax (Amendment) Ordinance, 2023 which introduced the provisions relating to ‘online gaming' and ‘Online Money Gaming.'

The addition of definitions for terminology like “virtual digital asset” and “specified actionable claim” is a noteworthy feature of this update. Furthermore, the Act substitutes the phrase “specified actionable claims” for the more general word “lottery, betting, and gambling.”

As per the newly inserted provision “online gaming” means offering a game on the internet or an electronic network and includes online money gaming. “Online money gaming” means online gaming in which players pay or deposit money or money's worth, including virtual digital assets, in the expectation of winning money or money's worth, including virtual digital assets, in any event including game, scheme, competition or any other activity or process, whether or not its outcome or performance is based on skill, chance or both and whether the same is permissible or otherwise under any other law for the time being in force

Following the 50th and 51st GST Council Meetings in October 2023, a number of States and Union Territories swiftly issued Ordinances to carry out changes to the laws pertaining to “online gaming.” These coordinated efforts show how different regions are working together to manage and control problems relating to internet gaming.