Indonesia reports decline in illegal online gambling
The Ministry of Communication and Digital Affairs attributed the decline to the government’s efforts.
Indonesia.- The Ministry of Communication and Digital Affairs has reported a decline in illegal online gambling detected in the country. In a meeting with Commission I of the House of Representatives (DPR), Alexander Sabar, the ministry’s director general of digital space supervision, said online gambling transactions amounted to Rp4tn in the third quarter of 2024, down from Rp21tn (US$1.29bn) in the first quarter and Rp16tn in the second. However, numbers are likely to be very rough estimates.
From 2017 to January 21, 2025, the ministry has acted against 5,707,952 pieces of digital content related to online gambling. Earlier this month, Molly Prabawaty, acting general director of Public Communication and Media at the Ministry of Communication and Digital Technology (Komdigi), said that between January 1 and January 6, her ministry acted against 43,063 pieces of digital content related to online gambling.
Gambling in Indonesia is illegal for both citizens and foreigners. The government has also implemented a monitoring system using artificial intelligence to detect websites associated with online gambling.
In December, Indonesia’s Ministry of Communications and Digital Affairs met with the PPATK and mobile operators to discuss two potential actions against illegal online gambling: a public awareness campaign to communicate that gambling can cause financial difficulties and a measure to prevent people from paying for gambling via phone credits.
