October 22, 2025 | 09:34 am
TEMPO.CO, Jakarta - Indonesia's Ministry of Communication and Digital (Komdigi) revealed that the value of online gambling (judol) deposits in the first six months of 2025 reached Rp17 trillion. Komdigi's Director of Digital Space Control Safriansyah Yanwar Rosyadi stated that online gambling had emerged as a real threat to the national economy, social stability, and the future of the younger generation.
"By 2025, Komdigi has handled more than 7.2 million online gambling contents, but this phenomenon continues to evolve rapidly," he said during a high-level discussion entitled 'Building Collaborative Digital Free from Online Gambling' on Tuesday, as quoted in a press release on Tuesday, October 21, 2025.
Safriansyah explained that the ministry has blocked millions of contents, but new contents are also growing rapidly. He emphasized that this has become a global challenge that needs to be addressed collectively. "We have blocked millions of contents, but what is growing is equally fast. This is a global challenge that demands collective efforts," he said.
The losses due to online gambling practices are not only financial but also social. These practices have spread across various segments of society, destroying family economies, and harming the future of the younger generation. According to the Financial Transaction Reports and Analysis Center (PPATK), the turnover of online gambling transactions in Indonesia reached Rp927 trillion during the period from 2017 to the first quarter of 2025.
Assistant Commissioner Alvie Granito Pandhita from the Directorate of Cyber Crime (Dittipidsiber) at the National Police emphasized the humanitarian aspects behind the rampant online gambling practices. Based on the police records, assets worth nearly Rp925 billion have been confiscated from online gambling networks throughout 2024 to 2025. "There are Indonesian workers recruited to operate gambling sites abroad with the promise of high salaries, but it ends in exploitation," said Alvie in the discussion.
According to the Director of Strategy and Policy for Digital Space Supervision at Komdigi, Muchtarul Huda, regulation alone is not sufficient to eradicate online gambling practices. So far, the government has been based on the Electronic Information and Transactions Law (UU ITE), the Personal Data Protection Law (PDP), and Government Regulation (PP) Number 71 of 2019 concerning the Implementation of Electronic Systems and Transactions. "We need an AI-based detection system, integration of cross-institution databases, and international cooperation to reduce the massive scale of online gambling in Indonesia," he said.
In the context of tackling online gambling, Huda stated that Payment Service Providers (PJP) are often scapegoated for the proliferation of online gambling transaction practices. However, within this ecosystem, financial services are not at the source but rather at the end stage, often abused by actors to exploit the neutrality of digital payment systems. According to Huda, PJP is an important partner for the government in closing the transaction loopholes used by online gambling networks.
The Head of Data Protection at the Deputy Assistant for Data and Electronic Transaction Protection Coordination, Coordinating Ministry for Politics, Law, and Security (Kemenko Polkam), Erika, stated that the issue of online gambling is now also related to national security. Its operational chain is considered complex, from mass domain registrations to cross-border transactions using digital wallets, QR codes, and even cryptocurrency.
She mentioned that 70 percent of online gambling players earn less than Rp5 million, and some of them are recipients of social assistance. "In July 2025, 603,000 social assistance recipients were found to be involved in online gambling activities, and their assistance was discontinued," she said during the discussion.
Currently, Erika stated that Kemenko Polkam is pushing a grand strategy to eradicate online gambling from three layers, namely cutting off domains and hosting at the source, collaborative cyber patrols in the middle, and financial interdiction downstream. "The approach must be helical, involving the government, industry, academia, communities, and the public," Erika said.
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