JAKARTA: President Joko Widodo (Jokowi) will form a special task force or task force to eradicate online gambling.
This decision was taken at a Limited Meeting on Online Gambling at the Presidential Palace on Thursday (18 April).
This task force will involve several related ministries/institutions.
“Decisions regarding formation steps taskforce “Integrated efforts to eradicate online gambling will be decided within one week,” said the Minister of Communication and Information, Budi Arie Setiadi, as reported by CNBC Indonesia.
Budi Arie emphasized that there is concern about the increasing number of online gambling players recently.
In fact, the total turnover of money from online gambling during 2023 will reach IDR 327 trillion.
Furthermore, online gambling transactions involve more than 3.2 million Indonesian citizens, with the majority of them being young people.
“The President revealed that there are complaints from the public regarding the rise of online gambling games. What do you think? There are still a lot of them, right? Well, that’s where we have to be firm. Because you yourself admit that there are still a lot of them, this needs to be eradicated,” added Budi Arie .
The Minister of Communication and Information explained that currently his ministry can only reduce or delete online gambling sites on social media. Meanwhile, freezing accounts is the authority of the Financial Services Authority (OJK) and law enforcement.
“We are only tasked with taking down the site, but what about funds? Mr. OJK can block the account. However, opening or freezing an account is within the authority of law enforcement officials.”
OJK Chairman Mahendra Siregar emphasized that his party had immediately acted by blocking accounts involved in online gambling activities.
He said that to date, around 5,000 accounts related to online gambling have been blocked.
Nevertheless, Mahendra highlighted that online gambling does not only occur within the country, but also across borders.
Apart from that, there is a flow of online gambling funds that does not go through a bank account.
Therefore, Mahendra assesses the importance of establishing an online gambling task force to ensure that there are no loopholes for online gambling players to hide the flow of funds.
