Jakarta, Indonesia — 

When the wife of Indonesian snack seller Surya asked why he stopped sending money home to his West Java village, he broke down, confessing to a gambling addiction that had cost him more than $12,000.

“When I lost big I was determined to win back what I lost. No matter what — even if I had to borrow money,” the 36-year-old father of two told AFP, declining to use his real name.

While gambling is illegal in the world’s most populous Muslim-majority nation — with sentences of up to six years in prison — government figures show around 3.7 million Indonesians engaged in it last year, placing more than $20 billion in bets.

The stats prompted President Joko Widodo in June to set up a task force, headed by the country’s security minister, and that month the government ordered telecoms providers to block overseas gambling websites — typically in Cambodia and the Philippines.

Some VPN services, which gamblers use to bypass firewalls on foreign sites, were also blacklisted, but diehard gamblers are still able to bet from their phones or through illegal bookies, and it is easy to borrow money from loan sharks.

Surya was earning up to $250 a month in the West Java capital Bandung, but once he started gambling, he said he was sending home to his family only one-quarter of that.

He would play mobile gambling games until dawn and squander away his hard-earned money.

“Even when you’re winning, the money will be gone instantly. Now, I’d rather give money to my wife,” he said.

‘I want to quit’

Eno Saputra, a 36-year-old vegetable seller in South Sumatra, started buying lottery tickets five years ago but is now addicted to mobile gambling.

He spends at least $6 a day gambling and once won $500, but usually suffers losses.

“From the bottom of my heart, I want to quit, for my children,” the father of three told AFP.

“I know this is wrong and forbidden by my religion.”

There is hope for some in Bogor, south of the capital Jakarta, where a clinic at a psychiatry hospital, since the beginning of the year, has been treating patients struggling to break their gambling addiction.

So far 19 addicts have received counseling and therapy for anxiety, paranoia, sleep disorders and suicidal thoughts, said Nova Riyanti Yusuf, director of the Marzoeki Mahdi Psychiatric Hospital.

But doctors believe there are many more struggling without treatment.

“I believe this is the tip of the iceberg because not everybody understands that gambling addiction is a disorder,” Nova told AFP.

The hospital is now conducting a study to collect data on how many Indonesians are addicted.

Crime spree

A spate of murders, suicides and divorces linked to illegal online gambling has further cast a spotlight on the surging trade.

In June, an East Java policewoman set her husband on fire because of his gambling, while last year a 48-year-old man in Central Sulawesi robbed and killed his mother to fund his habit, according to local media reports.

Local media have also reported a spike in suicides this year by gambling addicts while Islamic courts on Java island say they are dealing with more divorce requests from women whose husbands won’t stop betting.

“Gambling puts our future at risk … also the future of our family and our children,” President Widodo said when launching the task force.

Experts say, however, that the government’s initiative isn’t enough.

Police say they arrested 467 online gambling operators between April and June, seizing more than $4 million in assets.

But Indonesian judges have been criticized for handing out lenient prison sentences, with operators receiving sentences ranging from seven to 18 months.

“The investigation must be extended to the big names,” said Nailul Huda, an economist from the Center of Economic and Law Studies (Celios) research group.

“Those operators did not work alone. They answered to someone big.”

Surya, meanwhile, has quit gambling for the past month and says he is committed to stopping long-term.

“Nobody is getting rich from online gambling. Now I’ve learned my lesson,” he said.

But for other addicts like Eno, breaking free from the habit is no easy feat.

“This is a stupid thing to do,” he said, “but I am addicted.”