CHENNAI, India: B. Bhavani assured her father she would quit online card games – a promise she had made several times before as her family in southern India fretted about her mounting debts. A few hours later, the 29-year-old took her own life.

Bhavani, who was married with two young children, had racked up losses that her husband estimated at more than 1mil Indian rupees (RM53,547) since she started using online apps to play games like rummy about a year before her death in June.