India’s top political legal authority says the country should focus on eradicating sports betting rather than legalizing the practice.

A panel led by India’s former Chief Justice R.M. Lodha issued a report this week calling for the legalization of cricket betting but the country’s Minister of Law and Justice says India would be better served using the legal tools it has to stamp out the practice altogether.

In an interview with the Economic Times, D.V. Sadananda Gowda (pictured) said the Lodha committee’s recommendation that India legalize cricket betting “can be considered if at all we are unable to curtail [betting].” But Gowda said India’s existing laws were sufficient to stamp out gambling and so the government “should, as of now, go ahead with the elimination before considering its legalization.”

Gowda’s comments fly in the face of the Lodha committee’s belief that betting could be “effectively dealt with by providing a legal framework” and that legalizing betting would serve both the sport of cricket and India’s economy. Gowda’s comments also suggest a degree of ignorance regarding the widely held consensus that the country’s Public Gaming Act 1867 is in dire need of modernization.