Indonesia blocks 2.5 million pieces of gambling content, minister says it's not enough

Wagering boomed – and so did the quantity of money heading offshore

Indonesia has an online gambling problem. Despite having blocked access to wagering content over 2.5 million times last year, the nation’s Ministry of Communications and Information (KomInfo), believes it can only break the habit with further blocks and assistance from the private sector.

KomInfo minister Budi Arie Setiadi last Friday told an audience at the inauguration of the Cyber Crime and Online Gambling Task Force that gambling has "damaged all aspects of life" and "can no longer be tolerated."

The task force was charged with eradicating online gambling and crime in the digital space.

"Kominfo can only cut off access to gambling, so aspects of education to law enforcement including the banking ecosystem must also be actively involved in eradicating online gambling," he said.

The minister cited a lack of taxes and offshore money movements as reasons online gambling was damaging the economy.

KomInfo’s push to eliminate online gambling truly began in 2023 – the six years prior combined saw just 800,000 takedowns. Last year, a study [PDF] by PPATK – The Financial Transaction Reports and Analysis Center, an institution that coordinates the implementation of efforts to prevent and eradicate money laundering crimes in Indonesia – found gambling-related turnover in 2023 accounted for 63 percent of total gambling since 2017.

In 2023, nearly 3.3 million individuals gambled online, resulting in 168 million transactions totaling IDR 34.5 trillion ($2.13 billion). Over IDR 5.1 trillion ($317 million) ended up abroad, filtered through shell companies.

According to PPATK's report, individual gambling accounts were being both borrowed and sold – often to online gambling syndicates to be used as a means of storing funds. ®