Flutter has laid bare the severe costs of India’s abrupt decision to ban real money games, which rocked the Asian gaming landscape in August.
Executives divulged that the “extremely disappointing” reform saddled Flutter with a $556m impairment charge related to pulling its Junglee offering from the country, as it reported a group net loss of $789m in Q3, largely driven by the upheaval.
The passage of the Promotion and Regulations of Online Gambling Bill 2025 appeared to take many by surprise in the industry, and forced domestic operators like Dream11 and Mobile Premier League, as well as international operators like Flutter, to close down their real-money gaming operations.
At the time, Flutter decried the lack of consultation with industry stakeholders, warning of the “significant adverse consequences” of implementing the bill.
“We were frustrated at the speed with which the bill that emerged came into law,” Flutter CEO Peter Jackson told investors during Flutter’s Q3 earnings call.
“I would hope we might get some more sort of legal clarity around the extent to which some of these games of skill may be able to come back.”
Flutter acquired a majority stake in Junglee Games for $70m in 2021.
Alongside facing the charge related to pulling Junglee from India, Flutter has also missed out on a significant chunk of the $200m revenue it expected to rake in from the business throughout 2025.
Room for a return?
Junglee’s free-to-play content remains in India, and, as hinted at by Jackson, it’s clear that Flutter retains a glimmer of hope that it will be able to return to the country.
Jackson confirmed that the company is continuing to do “all the lobbying and legal challenges that you’d expect” and likened the situation to the US’ black friday in 2011, when the US Government seized the domains of many of the biggest online poker sites.
“It’s not that long ago that we saw black friday in America, and look where we are today. We’re going to maintain the Junglee product on a free-to-play basis, and we’ll see what happens,” he added.
So far, the only legal challenge to the prohibition has come from Head Digital Works, the parent company of A23, which described the law as a “product of state paternalism”.
In its filing with the High Court of Karnataka, viewed by Reuters, A23 warned that the decision “criminalises the legitimate business of playing online games of skill, which would result in the closure of various gaming companies overnight”.
Flutter was forced out of the Indian market at a time when it was continuing to flourish.
Before the prohibition, the Indian gaming industry was valued at $3.7bn and was projected to hit $9.1bn by 2029, according to the India Gaming Report 2025.
These figures demonstrate that the country clearly has an appetite for gaming, and Jackson has previously suggested that banning real money games could send players to the black market.
If this is the case, it may force India’s government to reevaluate this decision.
