REGULATION AND RESONANCE: LEGAL PATHWAYS AND PSYCHOLOGICAL CURRENTS IN ASSAM’S ONLINE MONEY GAMING, 1970–2025

Abstract

The rapid growth of digital gaming in India has transformed games into monetised and psychologically engineered environments, creating new challenges for legal regulation and public welfare. Assam provides a distinctive lens for examining these dynamics, given its transition from the prohibitionist Assam Game and Betting Act, 1970 to the governance-oriented framework introduced by the central Promotion and Regulation of Online Gaming Act, 2025. This paper analyses the evolution of gaming regulation in Assam alongside the psychological mechanisms that shape user engagement in online money games and monetised progression-based platforms.

Employing doctrinal analysis and socio-legal insights, the study explores how contemporary gaming systems deploy behavioural design strategies - reward variability, microtransactions, cognitive bias, and social competition - that often operate beyond the visibility of law. Empirical evidence from Assam indicates widespread monetised gaming participation, recurrent low-value spending, extended engagement during competitive events, and limited awareness of regulatory oversight. These findings reveal a structural disconnect between formal legal regulation and behavioural reality, where psychologically resonant design undermines consumer protection objectives.

To address this gap, the paper advances a Regulation - Resonance framework, arguing for behaviour-sensitive regulation capable of responding to the psychological architectures embedded within digital gaming ecosystems.