The Lok Sabha`s passage of the Promotion and Regulation of Online Gaming Bill, 2025 has been hailed by the government as a strike against addiction, crime, and financial ruin. But for horse racing, already a sport on life support, the move could well be the coup de grâce.

The bill takes the easy route of imposing a blanket ban on all real-money games, drawing no distinction between a game of skill like horse racing and pure games of chance. In one stroke, racing has been tossed into the same basket as fantasy leagues, poker dens, and online lotteries. The much-needed window of growth—online betting platforms that were beginning to steady turf clubs—has now been slammed shut.

Clubs like Hyderabad Race Club and Royal Calcutta Turf Club had begun reaping the benefits of online wagering, while others such as RWITC and Madras Race Club were finally taking baby steps in that direction. Sponsorships too were flowing in, with online betting apps underwriting major races with crores, quietly propping up a sport battered by dwindling footfalls and crushing taxation. All of that is now history. With harsh penalties and a ban on surrogate advertising, even companies like North Alley (Playhydraces) and Sportswin (Betindiaraces) which were official channels for online betting on Indian horse racing licensed by turf clubs in India will have to shut shop, leaving turf clubs stripped of yet another revenue lifeline.

But the real dagger is not the ban itself—it is the looming proposal to hike GST on betting from 28% to 40%. And unless the system shifts from taxing gross turnover to taxing net winnings (as every sensible jurisdiction does), the increase will be nothing short of a death warrant. Already, clubs are forced to pay tax on money that never enters their coffers, a practice under challenge in the Supreme Court. Raise that levy further, and horse racing will not just bleed—it will haemorrhage beyond revival.

This “one-size-fits-all” ban also ignores the reality on the ground: punters will not stop betting. They will simply move to offshore apps and underground networks, taking billions in taxable revenue with them. Congress MP Shashi Tharoor is right to warn that the government is driving the activity underground and handing it over to criminal mafias. In racing`s case, the impact is even more brutal because the sport`s regulated ecosystem—turf clubs, breeders, trainers, jockeys, stable hands—relies on betting revenues for survival. When that stream dries up, it is not just a pastime that dies, but the livelihood of thousands.

Horse racing, once the “Sport of Kings,” has already been reduced to an endangered sport under the GST regime. With this new bill and the spectre of a tax hike, the government has virtually signed its obituary. Unless reason prevails and the distinction between skill-based sport and gambling is restored in law and taxation, Indian horse racing will collapse into irrelevance—a victim not of dwindling interest, but of policy indifference.