Free online poker in India — and is it legal?

Teen Patti players will find Hold’em familiar and different. You make the best five-card hand from two cards of your own and five on the table, and the order shifts: in poker a flush beats a straight, while in Teen Patti a sequence beats a colour. The hand rankings settle any doubt in a minute.

The Temple of Fortune deals No-Limit Hold’em for five or nine players at three levels, from 50/100 blinds at the Scribes’ Table to 5,000/10,000 at the Pharaoh’s, with 15 seconds a move. Computer players carry an “AI” mark. For a game with your own group, open a private table and share its code. Poker tables.

In India the game is usually Tambola, or housie: 90 numbers, tickets of three rows, prizes such as Early Five, Top Line and Full House. The Hall of Seshat plays 75-ball bingo instead — a 5×5 card with a free space in the middle. A line in any direction wins 30% of the pot and the full card wins 70%, so the last few balls feel just like waiting for a Full House. As with tambola at a family party, friends can share a hall — up to 40 players. Bingo rules.

Roulette in the Rotunda of Shai uses the single-zero wheel; bets are open for 20 seconds, then the wheel spins for the whole table. Roulette.

Blackjack — “twenty-one” — in the Hall of Thoth: six decks, the dealer stands on soft 17, blackjack pays 3 to 2, and you can double or split up to four hands. Blackjack.

The Treasury of Ra has three machines: Sevens of Ra, a three-reel classic; Book of Thoth, with ten free spins and an expanding symbol; and Treasures of Horus, with Hold & Win and four jackpots. Each returns about 95% over a long run, and a spin costs debens only. The slots.

The ten players from India with the most experience this week, under their game names. Experience comes from every game in the city plus daily visits, and each level brings a rank named after a real title of ancient Egypt.

Mumbai, Delhi, Bengaluru, Hyderabad, Chennai, Kolkata, Pune — a city appears here once a player picks it under My city, and one with ten active players in a month gets a page of its own.

1. Open the game in your phone or computer browser and enter as a guest — no app, no KYC, no payment details.
2. Save your character with an email and a password to keep it on any device; that adds 500,000 debens.
3. Open your profile, choose My city and find your city in India.

For money, no. The Promotion and Regulation of Online Gaming Act, 2025 bans offering, advertising and processing payments for “online money games” — games played by paying fees or staking money in the hope of winning more, whether they rest on skill, chance or both. Coins and tokens count as stakes when they are bought with money. The rules under the Act took effect on 1 May 2026 and set up the Online Gaming Authority of India; a challenge to the Act is still pending in the Supreme Court, with no stay.

The same Act names a separate category, the “online social game”: no stakes, no expectation of winning money, offered for entertainment, recreation or skill development — and it tells the government to promote such games. Anubis City fits that description. Nothing is for sale, debens and ankhs can’t be bought or cashed out, and there are no prizes.

Gambling is also a state subject. In May 2026 the Supreme Court held that staking money even on games of skill is betting and gambling, upholding Tamil Nadu’s ban on online rummy and poker for stakes and reviving Karnataka’s. Telangana and Andhra Pradesh banned online games for stakes earlier, while Goa and Sikkim license casinos. All of these turn on money being staked. We are not lawyers, and this is our reading, not legal advice. The game is for adults 18 and over.