Government promises indiscriminate measures against online gambling | INSIDER

The government has announced that it will take indiscriminate measures to put an end to rampant online gambling.

Deputy Minister of Communications and Informatics Nezar Patria said that based on President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo’s order and the law, all online gambling must be eradicated, even though some of the online gambling operators are run by conglomerates.

“In general, the eradication of online gambling was actually ordered by the president. Online gambling must be fought in principle,” Nezar said on Wednesday, June 26, 2024.

With the establishment of a Task Force on Online Gambling, the Ministry of Communications and Information Technology was given the task of blocking and shutting down all online gambling websites.

Although the ministry has closed tens of thousands of online gambling websites, new ones are emerging every day.

“The ministry has assigned additional staff to block all online gambling sites, but new gambling websites keep popping up,” Nezar said.

As part of the task force set up by President Jokow Widodo, the ministry will work with the police, the financial regulator and other government institutions to crack down on the online gambling ecosystem.

“Since the online gambling operators are not operating in Indonesia but abroad, we are working with relevant parties such as law enforcement agencies to hunt down the perpetrators,” he said.

However, police observer at the Institute for Security and Strategic Studies (ISESS), Bambang Rukminto, expressed doubts about the eradication of online gambling, as there are indications that some conglomerates and oligarchs involved in online gambling are supporting some politicians in their election campaigns.

“These oligarchs and conglomerates have influence over law enforcement agencies. Then again, it comes down to the integrity of our law enforcement agencies. Without strong integrity, the law can of course be abused according to the pragmatic interests of individuals and groups,” he said.

Indonesia ICT Institute executive director Heru Sutadi said online gambling is indeed very problematic and harmful to society and the state because people’s financial resources are being sucked up by bookmakers based abroad.

Heru felt that the government is still inconsistent and indiscriminate in eradicating online gambling activities that have led to their boom in Indonesia.

“Indonesia is not only in an emergency situation of online gambling, but also faces online gambling invasions that attack the weakest layer of the country’s resilience, namely the family. Therefore, we hope that the task force will seriously eradicate online gambling at the root, be consistent and enforce the law indiscriminately,” he said.

Heru expressed hope that the Online Gambling Task Force will take decisive action against all actors, including influencers and celebrities, who promote online gambling.

“The celebrities and influencers are often investigated by the police without any further clear legal process. Then, of course, the people behind it are tracked down. Now it is the task force’s job to investigate whether law enforcement has a role to play in protecting online gambling,” he said.