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New Delhi: Kavin Bharti Mittal, the founder Hike and son of Bharti Airtel chairman Sunil Bharti Mittal, has announced the shutting down of his 13-year old startup Hike following the Indian government’s blanket ban on real-money gaming (RMG).
Mittal announced the decision after The Promotion and Regulation of Online Gaming Bill, 2025, was passed by the Parliament on 21st August 2025 which calls for a blanket ban on real-money gaming (RMG).
Mittal confirmed the closure in a Substack post, saying, “After regrouping with our investors and the team, I’ve made the difficult decision to wind down Hike completely," Mittal said in a post on the newsletter platform Substack.
"Our US business, launched just nine months ago, is off to a strong start. But after the India ban, scaling globally would require a full recap, a reset that is not the best use of capital or time," he said.
Sunil Mittal’s son started Hike in 2012 as a messaging app. It was considered as a rival to WhatsApp. The app had touched over 40 million monthly users. However, the app was shut down in 2021.
The company then shifted to building a casual RMG platform called Rush offering 14 mobile games money-based mobile games. It allowed players to win cash prizes. The app incorporated Web3 technologies such as digital ownership and play-to-earn mechanics.
To ‘protect middle class and youth; promoting e-sports, online social games’, the government came up with the legislation that is “designed to curb addiction, financial ruin and social distress caused by predatory gaming platforms that thrive on misleading promises of quick wealth”.
The government justified its move to introduce the law, saying that the online money gaming platforms were harming families as several people have lost their savings and the youth was getting addicted to it. It also mentioned the case of suicides because of the financial distress linked to these games.
Speaking in the Rajya Sabha, Union Minister for Electronics and Information Technology, Ashwini Vaishnaw said, “according to an estimate, 45 crore people are negatively affected by online money games and faced a loss of more than Rs. 20,000 crores because of it. The Government has acted to close these gaps and protect citizens.”
