#Onlinegaming #Antitrust #Google #Abuseofdominance
Whether an Antitrust probe survive a sudden legislative interference in the relevant market? Can a proposed settlement of an admitted anti-competitive unilateral conduct by a dominant enterprise, which has to be abandoned due to sudden legislative embargo, be revived in case the challenge to the new legislation succeeds in the Apex Court of Law??
This is the proposition of law which has emerged by an interesting mid-way statutory development in an ongoing Antitrust probe against Google into its alleged discriminatory approach towards Real Money Games market in India. This blog is based on the recent Order dated 08 September 2026 by the Competition Commission of India (CCI/Commission) in Case No. 42/2022, titled In Re: Winzo Games Private Limited Vs Alphabet Inc. & Google LLC & Others.
In 2022, Winzo Games, an Indian online gaming platform, filed a complaint with the Competition Commission of India (CCI) accusing Google of abusing its dominant position under Section 4 of the Competition Act, 2002. The dispute centred on Google Play’s approach to Real Money Games (RMGs).
Google had launched a Pilot Program in September 2022 that allowed only two categories of RMGs, Daily Fantasy Sports (DFS) and Rummy, to be listed on the Play Store, for a one-year trial period. Winzo, whose platform offered other RMG formats, argued this selective onboarding was arbitrary and anti-competitive. Two related grievances rounded out the complaint:
- Advertising restrictions: From November 2022, Google Ads only permitted DFS and Rummy apps to advertise, shutting other RMG developers out of a major user-acquisition channel.
- Payment warnings: Google Pay allegedly displayed unexplained warnings to users trying to pay for skill-based games on non-Pilot platforms.
After receiving Google’s response and inputs from the Ministry of Electronics and IT (MeitY), the CCI issued a Prima Facie Order in November 2024. It identified three relevant market, licensable OS for smart mobile devices, Android app stores, and online search advertising in India, and found Google prima facie dominant in each. The Commission flagged genuine competition concerns: the Pilot Program appeared to create a “two-tier market” favouring DFS and Rummy developers, the Ad Policy risked denying visibility to other RMG apps, and the payment warnings needed scrutiny for any link to the same selective treatment. The Director General was directed to investigate.
Rather than face a full-blown investigation, Google invoked Section 48B of the Act, the relatively new commitment mechanism, offering to resolve the concerns without a finding of contravention. What followed was an extended back-and-forth:
- The Commitment Application (First offer) (Feb 2025): Google proposed opening Play Store to all self-declared RMGs within six months. The Commission found the timeline too long, the Ad Policy concern unaddressed, and the payment-warning issue ignored.
- First Revised Commitment Application (Apr 2025): Google addressed advertising but sought six more weeks to work out details and appeared to still require non-Pilot RMG developers to get Play Store approval before advertising, which the Commission read as unlawful bundling of Play and Ads.
- Second Revised Commitment Application (Jun 2025): Google finally delinked Play Store listing from advertising eligibility, proposed third-party certification (via bodies like the E-Gaming Federation) to verify “permissible games of skill,” and set out implementation timelines of 120–150 days. This version satisfied the Commission enough to be put out for public comment.
Accordingly, the Commission, vide order dated 23.07.2025, published a non-confidential summary of the Second Revised Commitment Application, on its website on 30.07.2025 to invite comments, objections and suggestions from the public, if any, within twenty-one (21) days of publishing i.e., latest by 20.08.2025. Subsequently, the Commission vide order dated 20.08.2025, extended the timeline for submission of comments, objections or suggestions, if any, with respect to the commitment proposal till 01.09.2025 on the request of certain stakeholders.
This iterative process is itself a useful illustration of how India’s newly operational commitment framework functions in practice: commitments aren’t rubber-stamped; the Commission pushes back repeatedly until an offer is complete and credible.
Mid Case Statutory Change-
While the Second Revised Commitment Application was being so market-tested, and comments invited from the public and fifty-plus stakeholders, Indian Parliament passed the Promotion and Regulation of Online Gaming Act, 2025, receiving presidential assent on 22 August 2025 and coming into force on 1 May 2026.
The new law didn’t tinker with RMG regulation; it banned online money games outright, skill-based or chance-based, along with their advertising and associated payment facilitation. Google promptly told the Commission that its entire commitment offer — built on the premise that RMGs could lawfully be distributed and advertised — was now impossible to implement, and asked the CCI to either close the case or let it commit instead to shutting down the Pilot Program and RMG ads altogether.
In its final order, the CCI declined to accept a “commitment” to merely comply with a new statutory prohibition, reasoning that mandatory legal compliance cannot be dressed up as a negotiated competition remedy. But it went further and closed the underlying inquiry itself, using its inherent powers under Section 36(1) to recall its own 2024 prima facie direction. The key threads in its reasoning:
No lawful market survives. With RMGs banned outright and without any skill-versus-chance distinction, there’s no market left in which a “discriminatory” or “preferential” listing policy could even operate. No workable remedy exists. Any direction compelling Google to open its platforms to RMGs would now itself violate the new Act.
Conduct had already stopped. Google closed the Pilot Program and halted RMG advertising from January 2026, before the Online Gaming Act’s provisions even took effect. The inquiry would be purely academic. Investigating historical conduct in a market that no longer legally exists would consume DG and Commission resources for findings with no practical consequence.
The Informant itself sought withdrawal, though the Commission was careful to note that CCI proceedings are inquisitorial and in rem; an informant is not the dominus litis, and withdrawal alone would not have been enough to justify closure without the independent legislative change.
Notably, the Commission drew on a body of precedent, including CCI v. Steel Authority of India and Google Inc. v. CCI (Delhi HC), establishing that a Section 26(1) prima facie direction is administrative in character, not a determination of guilt, and can be recalled in appropriate circumstances.
The order is deliberately hedged. The Commission expressly clarified that:
The closure rests on the facts and law as they stand today — the Online Gaming Act’s validity is currently under challenge before the Supreme Court, and no stay has been granted.
If the Act is stayed, struck down, repealed, or otherwise ceases to operate, and Google resumes any conduct raising fresh competition concerns, the CCI reserves the right to take up the matter again under Sections 19 and 26.
The order records no finding on the merits. Google’s original conduct is neither vindicated nor condemned. It’s a closure on grounds of subsequent events (mootness), not a decision that no contravention occurred.
Beyond its specific facts, the order is a useful case study on two fronts:
- How commitments actually work under CCI’s newer framework. The Commitment Regulations, 2024 are still relatively fresh, and this saga — four rounds, public consultation, and eventual withdrawal — shows the Commission holding applicants to a genuinely high bar rather than treating commitments as a rubber stamp; and
- What happens when legislation overtakes litigation. Competition law disputes often unfold over years, and sector-specific legislation can move faster than regulatory proceedings. Here, an entire product category was outlawed mid-case, and the Commission had to decide how much of its own process, and its own prima facie findings, could sensibly survive that shift. Its answer: none of the inquiry, but not the right to revisit if the legal landscape changes again.
For platforms and app developers navigating India’s fast-evolving real-money gaming regulatory space, the case is a reminder that competition remedies are always subordinate to controlling legislation, and that “permissible” is a moving target.
COMMENT: The case will be remembered as , perhaps, the first case where the Commission had to recall its prima facie order directing investigation under Section 26(1) of the Act due to change in the law regulating a sector or a specific and also as a test case on the moot proposition raised in the beginning. In case the challenge to the new law, banning all Online gaming, in the Supreme Court succeeds and the RMG restart, whether the CCI will suo motu reconsider the commitment offers made by Google in the present case along with the public comments that might be received, or it will wait for a fresh complaint to be filed by any aggrieved party? It is going to be an interesting wait and watch!!
#Onlinegaming #Antitrust #Google #Abuseofdominance
