The government has vowed that it will indiscriminately take actions to eradicate the rampant online gambling.
Deputy Minister of Communication and Informatics, Nezar Patria, said that based on the order of President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo and the law, all online gambling must be eradicated despite the fact that some of the online gambling providers are run by conglomerates.
“In general, the eradication of online gambling has indeed been ordered by the president. All online gambling must be fought against,” Nezar said on Wednesday, June 26, 2024.
With the establishment of online gambling task force, the Ministry of Communication and Informatics has the duty to block and take down all websites of online gambling.
Although, the ministry has closed down ten thousands websites of online gambling , new websites keep on emerging on the daily basis.
“The ministry has added more people to block all online gambling sites, but new gambling websites continue to emerge,” Nezar said.
Under task force established by President Jokow Widodo, the ministry will cooperate with the police, Financial Service Authority and other government institutions to cut off the ecosystem of online gambling.
“As the online gambling providers do not operate in Indonesia, but overseas, we cooperate with related parties such as law enforcers to chase the perpetrators,” he said.
Police observer from the Institute for Security and Strategic Studies (ISESS), Bambang Rukminto, however cast his doubt on online gambling eradication because there are indications that some conglomerates and oligarchs involved in online gambling were supporters of some politicians in their political campaigns.
“These oligarchs and conglomerates have influences over law enforcement officers. Then, it all returns to the integrity of our law enforcers. Without strong integrity, of course the law can be deflected according to the pragmatic interests of individuals and groups,” he said.
Indonesia ICT Institute executive director Heru Sutadi said online gambling is indeed very troublesome and detrimental to the society and to the state because people’s financial resources are sucked up by bookies, which turn out to be located abroad.
Heru was of the opinion that the government is still inconsistent and discriminate in eradicating online gambling activities that make them flourish in Indonesia.
“Indonesia is not only in emergency situation of an online gambling but also faces online gambling invasions that attack the smallest layer of the nation’s resilience, namely the family. Therefore, we hope that the task force will seriously eradicate online gambling to its roots, be consistent and enforce the law indiscriminately.” he said.
Heru expressed hope that the online gambling task force will firmly take action against all actors including influencers or celebrities who promote the online gambling.
“The celebrities and influencer are often examined by the police without further clear legal process. Then of course the backers are traced. Now this is the job of the task force to investigate whether there is a role of law enforcement in protecting online gambling,” he said.