India, April 14 -- Goa chief minister Pramod Sawant on Sunday defended his government's decision to ban the popular community game 'Housie' (also known as Tambola).

A popular game of chance, Housie, also known as Bingo or Tambola, involves players marking numbers on their cards as they are called out randomly and whoever marks the entire numbers wins.

Speaking to media persons, CM Sawant said that for as long as the game was being held at a smaller scale, there was no problem.

"The law is above all. The law is also clear. For all this while it was happening in a small way, but now they started offering big prizes, we could not tolerate [it]," Sawant said on Sunday.

Sawant's comments come days after the Goa Football Association called ...