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Govt reports decline in online gambling transactions
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A person watches an online gambling advertisement on their tablet on June 19, 2024. The Communications and Information Ministry has blocked 2.1 million websites as part of the fight against online gambling. (Antara/Aprillio Akbar)
F
ollowing a nationwide crackdown on online gambling, the Communications and Digital Ministry has reported a significant decline in transactions on the illegal sites in the past few months.
Citing data from the Financial Transaction Reports and Analysis Center (PPATK), the ministry’s director general for digital monitoring, Alexander Sabar, said Rp 4 trillion (US$245 million) in transactions were recorded on online gambling sites in the third quarter of last year.
In contrast, some Rp 21 trillion in transactions were recorded in the first quarter of 2024 and some Rp 16 trillion in the second.
“Based on this data, this means that there is positive progress with a decreasing number of online gambling transactions," Alexander told lawmakers during a meeting on Wednesday, as quoted by kompas.com.
Alexander said the decline was the result of the government’s efforts to block access to the illegal sites and take down content on social media advertising them.
“In addition, we are also proposing that cell phone numbers that were indicated to have been used for communication [pertaining to online gambling] and for online gambling transactions be blocked,” Alexander added.
The government has declared war on what it has described as an “online gambling epidemic”, thought to have affected some 8.8 million Indonesians nationwide of various ages.
