THE BAN ON real money gaming (RMG) under the Promotion and Regulation of Online Gaming Act, 2025 has resulted in multiple entities and investors involved in the business writing off their investments. These include Flutter Entertainment, the world’s largest online betting and gaming group, Canadian investment firm Clairvest Group, and Nazara Technologies who had invested in Moonshine Technologies, the parent of PokerBaazi, the popular poker app.
Flutter Entertainment
Flutter Entertainment, the world’s largest online betting and gaming group, in its Q3 2025 earnings, disclosed that it had taken a non-cash impairment charge of $556 million, which has resulted in a net loss of $789 million for the three months ended September 30, 2025. This move was necessary because its India entity, Junglee Games, was one of the many victims of the new online gaming laws banning RMG.
“The cessation of real-money gaming in India was outside our control,” the company said in its filings. “While we remain committed to compliance and responsible gaming, we will continue to assess our medium-term opportunities in the market.”
“We are extremely disappointed with the sudden and unexpected change to the regulatory landscape in India,” Flutter CEO, Peter Jackson, said in a letter to shareholders. “Flutter has invested significantly in India over the last number of years, responsibly delivering innovative skill-based games to Indian customers. Junglee will now only offer free-to-play gaming content as we assess our medium-term options in that market. Outside of performance during the quarter, the enactment of the Promotion
and Regulation of Online Gaming Act, 2025 forced Junglee and all other operators to immediately cease real-money operations.”
Flutter’s guidance shows that they might take a revenue drop of $70 million and EBITDA loss of $30 million in 2025 alone. The impact is likely to worse in the coming years with revenue losses of $250 million and EBITDA drop of $90 million projected for 2026 and growing to $310 million and $130 million respectively in 2027.
Clairvest Group
Clairvest Group has written off its entire investment in the online gaming company, Head Digital Works, which ran A23 Rummy. The investment has resulted in Clairvest reporting a net loss of around Rs 486 crore for the quarter ended September 2025.
“During the second quarter of fiscal 2026, Head Digital Works experienced a material adverse regulatory development resulting from the government of India enacting a law which bans real money gaming and any associated facilitations. This development has made it illegal for HDW to conduct its business,” Clairvest stated in a quarterly earnings disclosure.
“Based on our negative experience with Head Digital Works and other recent experiences investing abroad, we intend to concentrate our investing in North America going forward. We remain focused on staying closer to our proven investment strategy to deliver long-term value for our shareholders,” Clairvest CEO Ken Rotman said in a statement.
Clairvest had, in 2018, initially invested in Head Digital Works, which ran A23 Rummy, A23 Poker, and Cricket.com. It had then acquired 87 per cent stake for $73.7 million.
Nazara Technologies
In India, Nazara Technologies’ investment in its associate company, Moonshine Technologies Pvt Ltd, which operated the real-money gaming business, has been substantially written-down due to the regulatory environment banning or severely restricting real-money gaming.
Nazara recognised an impairment loss of ₹ 914.7 crore in the quarter ended 30 Sept 2025 (Q2 FY26) on its investment in Moonshine Technologies. The carrying value of the investment in Moonshine was reduced to ₹ 96.53 crore as of 30 Sept 2025. The company attributed the impairment to regulatory change: the newly enacted Promotion and Regulation of Online Gaming Act, 2025 (or the decision to ban real-money gaming) which “prohibits its sole line of business” (i.e., Moonshine’s real-money-gaming business) and hence the “complete cessation of revenue-generating activities”.
The impairment is noted as a one-time, exceptional accounting adjustment, and Nazara has emphasised that it does not affect the core operating cash flows or the momentum of its main gaming business. The rest of Nazara’s business (mobile gaming, console/PC, esports, non-RMG segments) remains intact and growing.
Since Moonshine’s business is real money gaming and the law in India has shifted to restrict or ban such models, the full impairment recognises that Nazara expects no meaningful recovery of the investment at this stage.
