he government has blocked more than 1 million online gambling sites in the past six months, which is equal to the number of online gambling platforms whose access was cut in the previous five years, the Communications and Information (Kominfo) Ministry said on Friday.
The ministry estimates that the number of online gambling websites in the country has grown by 10,000 every day.
“We are in the process of increasing our capacity to detect more. But it will never end, as they [online gambling operators] have more resources than us,” said Teguh Arifiadi, the ministry’s director of information technology application control, in a press briefing.
Gambling of all kinds, online or off, is illegal in Indonesia. Under the Criminal Code, participants in and organizers of gambling events face a maximum punishment of up to 10 years in prison and a Rp 25 million (US$1,520) fine.
The Electronic Information and Transactions (ITE) Law stipulates a sentence of up to six years in prison and a fine of Rp 1 billion for distributing online gambling software.
Yet, the activity still runs rampant in the country with the Financial Transaction Reports and Analysis Centre (PPATK) reporting on Wednesday that Indonesians from all walks of life have become addicted to the practice, including some civil servants and lawmakers.
Every Monday
Over the past few weeks, President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo’s administration has been scrambling to discourage people from engaging in online gambling, which is thought to involve 4 million Indonesians with an estimated annual transaction value of around Rp 600 trillion (US$36.6 billion).