August 1, 2025 | 11:43 am
TEMPO.CO, Jakarta - The Indonesian Ministry of Communication and Digital has teamed up with the Financial Transaction Reports and Analysis Center (PPATK) to block bank accounts used for online gambling transactions. Communications Minister Meutya Hafid said that simply blocking access to online gambling sites is insufficient to deter the practice.
"Content can easily be recreated, but it is difficult to reopen a blocked account," she said in a written statement on Thursday, July 31, 2025.
Since the era of President Prabowo Subianto's government began on October 20, 2024, as of July 28, 2025, the Ministry had managed to remove nearly 2.5 million pieces of negative content from cyberspace. Of that number, about 1.7 million contained online gambling content. "We obtained data on this negative content from public complaints and our crawling system," said Meutya.
However, she stated that online gambling sites are still rampant and continue to be promoted on various social media platforms. She noted that online gambling operators are becoming more creative in finding ways that are not detected by the content-crawling system, allowing them to continue promoting online gambling.
Therefore, she supports PPATK's move to track bank accounts suspected of being involved in online gambling transactions. She also urged banks to be stricter in the customer verification process. "Banks should also be required to be stricter so that operators cannot open new accounts," said the Golkar Party politician.
Through collaboration with PPATK, she said that efforts to break the chain of online gambling are expected to be more effective. "It's good to combine it, where there is content crawling and also account crawling," she said. However, she did not mention the number of bank accounts affiliated with online gambling that have been blocked.
Previously, PPATK mentioned that the value of online gambling transactions in the first quarter of 2025 reached Rp47 trillion. According to PPATK Head Ivan Yustiavandana, the value of online gambling transactions in the first quarter of this year decreased by about 80 percent compared to the same period in 2024. "The value of transactions, which previously reached IDR 90 trillion from January to March 2024, has now steeply dropped to Rp47 trillion," said Ivan in a written statement on Thursday, May 8, 2025.
On the other hand, Ivan estimated that the turnover of online gambling money this year would reach Rp1,200 trillion. He mentioned that the money flow is larger than last year, which was Rp981 trillion. "The challenges of money laundering crimes, terrorism financing crimes, and mass destruction weapon proliferation funding will continue to grow and take advantage of new technologies such as crypto assets, and other online platforms," Ivan said in his written statement on Friday, April 18, 2025.
M. Raihan Muzzaki contributed to the writing of this article
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