Indonesia takes down 1.9M online gambling contents; creates task force to eradicate iGaming

Indonesia's Communication and Informatics Minister Budi Arie Setiadi revealed that since taking office on July 17, 2023, through to May 21, 2024, his ministry has taken down 1.9 million online gambling contents.

Additionally, the Ministry of Communication and Informatics has requested the Financial Services Authority (OJK) and Bank Indonesia (BI) to block bank accounts and digital wallets associated with online gambling. So far, 5.364 bank accounts have been proposed for blocking by the OJK, and 555 digital wallets by BI.

Setiadi further announced that President Joko "Jokowi" Widodo had directed the formation of a more comprehensive task force to implement concrete steps in eradicating online gambling. "The formation of the online gambling task force is a commitment from the government to systematically and measurably eradicate online gambling from upstream to downstream," he stated on Wednesday.

According to the Minister, the online gambling eradication task force will be established within one to two weeks. The Coordinating Minister for Political, Legal, and Security Affairs, Hadi Tjahjanto, will lead the task force. Setiadi will head the prevention division, while National Police Chief Listyo Sigit Prabowo will lead the enforcement division.

Minister Setiadi said stern warnings and ultimatums were issued to various social media platforms,including Meta in October 2023 and X (formerly Twitter) in January 2024. These warnings resulted in Meta removing 1.65 million pieces of online gambling content and 450,000 related advertisements from August to October 2023.

Enforced in January, the law governing electronic transactions and information explicitly prohibits online gambling, imposing severe penalties of up to 10 years imprisonment and fines of up to IDR 10 billion ($645,000) for operators found guilty of running gambling sites.