On a Thursday evening, as the peak-hour traffic begins to build in east Bangalore, a group of 20-something friends enter a three-storey commercial complex on the periphery of Indiranagar, a posh residential suburb.

The ground floor of this building houses a popular vegetarian restaurant, frequented by large families. This group, though, has no interest in a leisurely meal. Instead, they are headed three floors up to Andyz Fish & Chips, one of a dozen new poker rooms that have mushroomed across India’s IT Capital.

Riding on a Karnataka High Court judgment a year ago that declare d poker as a predominant game of skill and not one of chance, these entrepreneurs have set up these rooms across the length and breadth of the city, attracting dozens of youth who have familiarized themselves with the game online.

A few months later, it was the turn of a court to give rummy a stamp of legality — in a judgment, the Karnataka High Court quashed charges against 19 persons who were arrested on charges of gambling for playing rummy. Like in the case of poker, the court reckoned that rummy too was a game of skill, not chance.

There’s no board to direct you to Andyz, which sounds more like a restaurant but for those who play the game, both ‘fish’ and ‘chips’ are poker-speak — the former for a novice and the latter are the tokens that masquerade as money.

As the rest of the city makes its way home at around 7.30 pm, two tables are well into their games of poker. Andyz has half a dozen tables (including one for VIP members with cushioned leather chairs in a room) and, on weekends, you can expect at least five of them to be busy. "Everyone who comes here has tried online poker first, but now wants a taste of the real thing," says Andy Morgan, co – founder of the club. "We have 300 members and we’re adding to this list daily."

Over the past couple of years, India’s legal system — state by state — has been opening up to the possibilities of more legitimate avenues for gambling. For example, in September this year, the Supreme Court sought the Union government’s thoughts on viewing online rummy as a game of skill — and therefore a more legal operation — rather than a decidedly illegal game of chance.

Elsewhere, Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh ruled that poker for stakes was a game of skill and therefore kosher. Sikkim runs an online and legal lottery system. Most visibly, lakhs of rupees are bet legally on horse races daily across India.

This interest is hardly a shock for regular punters, who have for decades been trying their hands at games of skill and chance. Every year, around Diwali, these games peak, as people flock to house parties for an assortment of card games, with money wagered between friends and family informally.

Time to Take a Chance

If the popularity of poker clubs in Bangalore is any indication, then India may be ideally poised to benefit from a more broadly legalized gambling market, backed with stringent law enforcement (with the creation of gaming commissions as in the UK) and the opportunity to funnel crores of rupees from underground networks.

According to regulars, there is still a very limited opportunity in India to gamble legally for players who have honed their skills online and want to make a splash in the real world.

Some do try their hand at casinos in Goa and Sikkim, but many prefer to hit the gaming houses in Bangkok, Singapore (with just two large legally sanctioned casinos in Marina Bay Sands and Resorts World Sentosa) or the Monte Carlo of the Orient — Macau.

The erstwhile Portuguese colony generated $45 billion in gambling revenues in 2013, barely a decade after making a concerted push into the market (although the Portuguese had legalized gambling way back in the 1850s).

Macau’s meteoric rise has left old favourites in the US, Las Vegas and Atlantic City behind. As the legal tide turns, regular players hope that India can slowly unshackle itself from the past and emerge as an alternative destination for gambling.

The first signs of this movement are already visible — thanks to the internet, thousands of players between 18 and 40 years are well versed in games such as poker and rummy both online and offline — while legalization is prompting the establishment of new clubs.
"There’s plenty of interest and excitement around these games and a stronger legal framework will only push more people to consider legal avenues," says Morgan of Andyz. The Karnataka High Court’s ruling a year ago gave the gambling market a big fillip, prompting the setting up of a raft of new clubs. "This is an entirely legal operation," says KN Suresh, about the Indian Poker Association (IPA), of which he is the secretary and co-founder.

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