My11Circle & RummyCircle Parent Games24x7 to Cut 70% Workforce after India’s Real-Money Gaming Ban

Games24x7, the Mumbai-based owner of RummyCircle and My11Circle has begun laying off roughly 500 employees, about 70% of its workforce, the Economic Times reported. This comes after the Centre’s new law banning real-money online gaming effectively wiped out its domestic revenue model.

The retrenchment is the latest sign of a wider sector collapse that has forced rival platforms to suspend paid contests and downsize sharply.

Parliament’s Promotion and Regulation of Online Gaming Act, 2025, which came into force this year, bars real-money online gaming. It encourages esports and non-money formats and has removed the core monetisation channel for many Indian skill-gaming firms.

The government has also criminalised promotion and payment flows for money games, prompting many operators to halt paid products overnight.

Industry Fallout

The Games24x7 cuts mirror moves at other major operators. Mobile Premier League (MPL) is reported to be cutting about 60% of its India staff after suspending paid contests, and several poker and rummy platforms have announced similar retrenchments or strategic pivots to free-to-play, short-video or streaming businesses. The report says the ban has erased revenue for domestic RMG operators almost overnight.

Until the regulatory shift, Games24x7 was among India’s best-known gaming unicorns: it raised a $75 million round that valued it at roughly $2.5 billion in 2022 and reported operating revenue near Rs 1,988 crore (about Rs 2,023 crore including other income) for FY23.

The sudden legal change has therefore put a high-growth firm with significant investor backing into rapid restructuring.

Ban Implications

Not every operator has complied quietly: A23 (Head Digital Works), which runs a leading poker and rummy platform, has filed a legal challenge in the Karnataka High Court contesting the law’s constitutionality, and the government has asked the Supreme Court to consolidate several pending challenges to avoid conflicting rulings.

The outcome of those cases will be pivotal for whether any commercial RMG activity can resume under new rules or court orders.

Platform-level revenue losses are already showing up in payment flows: UPI spending on digital goods, a broad indicator that includes gaming, fell sharply in August, pointing to a collapse in transaction volumes tied to paid games as operators shut down paid contests.

Observers warn that knock-on effects could hit vendors, media partners and local vendors who relied on gaming-driven ad and sponsorship dollars.

Companies face three immediate options: (1) pursue legal relief and hope courts temper enforcement; (2) pivot fast to non-money gaming, esports, streaming or overseas markets; or (3) negotiate with investors and creditors while shrinking costs. For now, the RMG ecosystem is in retrenchment mode, with thousands of jobs at risk unless new business lines or judicial outcomes restore parts of the market.