Online Gambling in Indonesia: How it Started and Where is it Going

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Online Gambling in Indonesia: How it Started and Where is it Going

Indonesia is comprised of 17,500 smaller islands and is divided into 34 provinces. Indonesia has many economic ties with Western countries and Asia. Even though islands such as Jakarta and Bali are their top tourist spots, the government is working to ban gambling forms. While Asia is reporting growth in online gambling, Indonesia is trending in the opposite direction. A recent report from Accountants at PriceWaterhouseCoopers shows that in the next few years, Asia’s online gambling market will skyrocket from $34billion to approximately $80billion. Although this is a dramatic increase, the Indonesian government was not swayed by it.

The Legal Aspect of Gambling in Indonesia

In 2012 the Indonesian Minister of Social Affairs and Communication & IT announced they were planning to implement new legislation to make all online gambling forms illegal. This decision came about because of the large sum of money used to bet on the Euro 2012 Football Championship. The Jakarta Post reported that billions of rupiah were used to gamble online, and people were selling their most prized possessions such as their houses to fund this bet.

Another drive that is being used to assist with the ban is strict Islamic Laws that are responsible for the restriction placed on gambling. The government plans to pool all their resources to tackle the problem of online gambling head-on. The Minister of Social Affairs and Communication & IT is looking to tackle the issue from a technical point of view with the aim to block Indonesian citizens from accessing all online gambling platforms. Online gambling is an illegal activity in Indonesia, but with the government using a blanket approach is resulting in loopholes. Currently, there is very little to stop Indonesians from gambling online. Online gambling websites such as https://pkvqq.id/ still allows people to register with them.

Popularity

Online gambling casinos are still popular in Indonesia despite the government trying its best efforts to ban them. Thousands of bets are made in pounds per day at both the sports betting and table games. In 2010 two popular casinos were shut down because they were making over $50,000 per day. Since making plans in 2012, the authorities in Indonesia have taken steps to completely ban online gambling.

Several locally hosted websites were shut down over the past few months. The government has found it hard to monitor all websites, and blocking access is very difficult. Now the only legal form of gambling in Indonesia is a licensed free lottery. Even though the lottery is legal, it is being oppressed by the government. The only way to completely ban online gambling is by making fundamental changes to the authorities’ attitude. The only set source of meaningful gambling for Indonesians are international websites.

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