Mumbai, September 8: The Narendra Modi-led Central government's ban on online real money gaming (RMG) is said to have had an immediate effect on the Unified Payments Interface transactions in August. According to data available with the National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI), which runs UPI, the gaming sector saw an INR 2,500 crore drop in a matter of nine days. As per the NPCI data, the gaming category witnessed 271 million transactions worth INR 7,441 crore in August.

This was a steep 25 per cent drop when compared to the 351 million transactions worth over INR 10,076 crore that the UPI platform saw in July 2025. It must be recalled that the online RMG ban came into effect on August 22, less than 96 hours after the Online Gaming Act 2025 got cabinet clearance. The online RMG ban was effective for a total of nine days in August. Will Online Gaming Bill 2025 Impose Ban on Dream11, My11Circle, PokerBaazi and More? List of Real-Money Gaming, Betting Apps and Platforms That Could Be Affected.

This means most of the revenue of the gaming sector came from real money gaming. On the other hand, other digital games, including e-sports and online social games, managed to generate hardly any revenue for the sector. It is worth noting that over 90 per cent of the real-money wallet loading takes place through UPI and was worth over INR 10,000 crore every month.

According to NPCI data, the annual turnover is in the range of INR 1.2 lakh crore. It is also reported that the gaming category saw about 350 to 400 million monthly transactions on the UPI platform, which processes more than 19 billion every month as a whole, worth around INR 25 lakh crore. The data further revealed that the monthly transaction count through UPI reached 500 million in April 2025 due to the Indian Premier League (IPL). Online Gaming Bill 2025 Passed in Lok Sabha Without Debate Amid Intense Protests From Opposition Members (Watch Video).

However, it is said that the impact of plunging UPI transactions in the gaming sector is minimal as the real money gaming sector contributes around 0.5 per cent in value every month and around 1.5 per cent in volume on average. Earlier in April, the UPI transactions in the real money gaming sector hit 2.5 per cent in volume due to IPL-related gaming activities. Most of the real money gaming transactions are small in ticket size.

(The above story first appeared on LatestLY on Sep 08, 2025 11:01 AM IST. For more news and updates on politics, world, sports, entertainment and lifestyle, log on to our website latestly.com).