[NEWS]Indonesia Blocked 3.7M Gambling Websites Since 2024

[moneystery]

I believe that even though they block so many gambling sites, these illegal gambling operators can still launch new sites much faster than they can block them. These gambling operators have millions of Indonesian phone numbers and active marketers promoting their sites on social media.
So, even though they claim to block millions of sites, the number of gamblers in Indonesia continues to increase every year because these sites continue to emerge. This is especially true when high-ranking Indonesian officials are involved in the illegal gambling industry. So, what they're doing is like draining water from the ocean, which is actually pointless.

[Accardo]

So, even though they claim to block millions of sites, the number of gamblers in Indonesia continues to increase every year because these sites continue to emerge. This is especially true when high-ranking Indonesian officials are involved in the illegal gambling industry. So, what they're doing is like draining water from the ocean, which is actually pointless.

Indonesia is of Islamic Majority, but modern generation don't pay attention to doctrines like in the past, it's impossible to eliminate gambling completely from the brains of her citizens. What brought my concern to this matter is the Draconian law I found on the article Op linked to this topic, has it gotten to that extent of threatening to take people's life for gambling? or is it a made up term in the article to scare people?

[coinrifft]

I believe that even though they block so many gambling sites, these illegal gambling operators can still launch new sites much faster than they can block them. These gambling operators have millions of Indonesian phone numbers and active marketers promoting their sites on social media.
So, even though they claim to block millions of sites, the number of gamblers in Indonesia continues to increase every year because these sites continue to emerge. This is especially true when high-ranking Indonesian officials are involved in the illegal gambling industry. So, what they're doing is like draining water from the ocean, which is actually pointless.

They just block it, they didn't take it down, so most likely this illegal gambling sites are still going to be in the internet and no matter what, it could still reach some gamblers and fall victim to it. Commended Indonesia if the numbers is correct, because 3.7 million sites is really huge and they are doing in the last 2 years.

And the numbers shows how big gambling is, regardless if it is legal or illegal. And with the advent of internet and it's speed and connectivity improving every year, I'm not surprised that the numbers keeps growing and becoming a multi-billion industry.

[Porfirii]

How is possible to have 3.7m gambling websites? I have seen info that there are about 1 billion web pages, if Indonesia has blocked 3.7m, this is 0.37% of the whole internet. Look unrealistic for me. If I add unblocked pages then I cant imagine to have +3.7m unique casino names and site names. These casinos might have have random name then or random combinations of symbols.

Yes, numbers doesn't up add and it's hard to block that kind of numbers and I don't think that illegal or legal gambling sites could attribute 3.7 million.

Not saying that Indonesian government are not blocking it, but the numbers are really that huge and it will take a lot of man power to monitor. Maybe they uses AI or bots to monitor everything and most likely there are some mistakes in blocking as they could have been just using some keywords.

If there has been such an exaggerated increase in blocks recently, I attribute it precisely to the greater capacity for tracking and processing information offered by the AI. As you say, the labour force needed would otherwise be enormous, and totally inefficient, even for a government (with guaranteed revenues).

As for the total number, although it represents a percentage of the total number of websites on the Internet, let's remember that the population of Indonesia is among the highest in the world, and that the gambling sector is one of the fastest growing on the Internet. That coupled with the fact that it is becoming easier and easier to develop an online casino thanks, again, to the AI (even if in many cases it could be nothing more than a landing page and little else, for people to deposit their money, even if then the platform is lousy) makes me think the numbers may not be wrong.

[KiaKia]

Illegal gambling isn't even the problem here, if those children are gambling on a legal casino what happened will still happen, I can remember a Indonesia movie that I watched one time like that, its mainly focused on gambling addiction.

I think that Indonesia country is suffering from addicted gamblers all through, both the young and also the old people, it got so bad that it caught the attention of their government, they have to take these steps to reduce the damage.

Similar thing is happening in India too but I don't hear that their government are banning every illegal casinos they can find, or should we say that illegal casinos have the upper hand at stealing people's money? Like they aren't running base on provable fair protocol?

[stadus]

Illegal gambling isn't even the problem here, if those children are gambling on a legal casino what happened will still happen, I can remember a Indonesia movie that I watched one time like that, its mainly focused on gambling addiction.

No legal casino allows children to gamble because licensed casinos are required to follow basic procedures like KYC. Through KYC, they can verify whether a user is a minor. If the user is underage, the casino will reject the application or close the account if the verification happens later.

I believe what the country is really trying to prevent is access to illegal casinos that do not respect its laws and allow people to gamble without KYC.

[Taskford]

Illegal gambling isn't even the problem here, if those children are gambling on a legal casino what happened will still happen, I can remember a Indonesia movie that I watched one time like that, its mainly focused on gambling addiction.

No legal casino allows children to gamble because licensed casinos are required to follow basic procedures like KYC. Through KYC, they can verify whether a user is a minor. If the user is underage, the casino will reject the application or close the account if the verification happens later.

I believe what the country is really trying to prevent is access to illegal casinos that do not respect its laws and allow people to gamble without KYC.

Casino allow children to gamble are desperate to earn profit, then also I believe they are legal that's why I also find those casinos to dangerous to play.

If they allow those young people to play that means they are not actually compliant with law or regulation happening. Also it seems that the casino is trying to hit some big volumes and when they achieve their target deposited amount they turn scam and do same scam trick with people here or even outside of this platform.

Yeah many countries prevent minors to gamble, if I know casinos still did it. I will provably avoid them because for sure they are 100% scammers.

[Perfectbaby]

At first when I read about the caption I mean the title, I was actually thinking it was $3.7 million that was blocked in nearly 9 websites and I didn’t know it was the opposite they meant.

To be honest, 3.7m website in just for two years seems to be unrealistic for me because how could they manage to block such numbers in just a limited time frame looks so funny to say.  Or where they blocking nearly 100k websites everyday or something?

[stadus]

Illegal gambling isn't even the problem here, if those children are gambling on a legal casino what happened will still happen, I can remember a Indonesia movie that I watched one time like that, its mainly focused on gambling addiction.

No legal casino allows children to gamble because licensed casinos are required to follow basic procedures like KYC. Through KYC, they can verify whether a user is a minor. If the user is underage, the casino will reject the application or close the account if the verification happens later.

I believe what the country is really trying to prevent is access to illegal casinos that do not respect its laws and allow people to gamble without KYC.

Casino allow children to gamble are desperate to earn profit, then also I believe they are legal that's why I also find those casinos to dangerous to play.

If they allow those young people to play that means they are not actually compliant with law or regulation happening. Also it seems that the casino is trying to hit some big volumes and when they achieve their target deposited amount they turn scam and do same scam trick with people here or even outside of this platform.

Yeah many countries prevent minors to gamble, if I know casinos still did it. I will provably avoid them because for sure they are 100% scammers.

Okay, let’s say these casinos are legal. They still wouldn’t knowingly allow minors to gamble. Their usual excuse is that they didn’t know the user was underage because they didn’t conduct KYC.

Casinos can get away with this when their licensing providers or regulators aren’t strict enough with monitoring. In the crypto gambling space, many casinos still don’t require KYC, so minors may be able to gamble without much difficulty. However, it isn’t entirely the casinos’ fault. Parents also have a responsibility to monitor their children’s online activities.

[leea-1334]

The sites are not the problem its the apps on mobile they need to start blocking or reporting,,, that is where all the people especially kids and old folks are losing their money constantly even my friends who have network in the maids circle, they are sending money home and installing monitoring software on their parents phones because these guys are addicted.

Blocking sites is impossible job, 10 mirrors pop up daily and on telegram is where they advertise the apps,,, it is a losing battle.

[boyptc]

I guess that they'll just list that and considers it as a gambling website based on the appearance and that's how they determine it.

And with the number of their population, I think that there's accuracy in the report that they've taken down a lot of it.

It's a big country and despite that they're devoted into their religion, I can't imagine that they have this much number of casinos in their land.

[panjul07]

I believe that even though they block so many gambling sites, these illegal gambling operators can still launch new sites much faster than they can block them. These gambling operators have millions of Indonesian phone numbers and active marketers promoting their sites on social media.
So, even though they claim to block millions of sites, the number of gamblers in Indonesia continues to increase every year because these sites continue to emerge. This is especially true when high-ranking Indonesian officials are involved in the illegal gambling industry. So, what they're doing is like draining water from the ocean, which is actually pointless.

The operator do not need to create new sites because what is done by Indonesian government is just a simple block in coordination with the Ministry of Communications and Digital Affairs.
Means that what is blocked is only the access to that sites, while gamblers can still access them by using mirror links or even VPN.
However, I doubt the claim of 3.7M websites, even if this number comes from the official Ministry of Communications and Digital Affairs in Indonesia, most Indonesian will not believe it LOL.
Too many things are exaggerated, especially to highlight a ministry’s performance in Indonesia, I'm Indonesian but I have to be honest about the fact of Indonesian government.

[coin-investor]

Indonesia’s Ministry of Communications and Digital just released the number of gambling related websites they have blocked since 2024. According to them, they have blocked 3.7M "gambling websites" in the last two years, and 38K bank accounts have been suspended and are suspected to be related to gambling operations.

Either they gave the wrong figure, or they are just bragging. 3.7 million websites is such a huge and unbelievable number; we don't even know if there are that many gambling sites. I'm not good at math, but common sense will not add that numbers, how many employees they are employing to catch these gambling sites and what system did they use to get that figures.

[Karl_3000]

Yes, numbers doesn't up add and it's hard to block that kind of numbers and I don't think that illegal or legal gambling sites could attribute 3.7 million.

Not saying that Indonesian government are not blocking it, but the numbers are really that huge and it will take a lot of man power to monitor. Maybe they uses AI or bots to monitor everything and most likely there are some mistakes in blocking as they could have been just using some keywords.

They did not block 3.7 million gambling companies, they block websites, URLs, domains, mirror sites and gambling-related online content according to what I saw about it from my findings. All these can be from the same fake gambling site, while some legal sites can also be included. This is very plausible.

[Akbarkoe]

I just saw the numbers are very much but I do not know whether or not to reach millions, but even if it does mean gambling sites that feel in indonesia more than the style that is removed because to this day there are still many games that do advertising on many social media and websites, the Indonesian government is really not able to handle the growth of gambling sites because it is much more than what they can do.
Indonesia is an easy target where the citizens with middle to lower economic level is much more and they prefer to risk the future for a lucky chance, Indonesia strictly forbids gambling but if it just blocks every cycle it will be a huge waste of time and effort as it continues to grow, is there any way for that growth to slow down?

[hyudien]

I as a resident of Indonesia also don't believe that number, lol but I believe that the government is indeed blocking illegal gambling sites, it's just a matter of the number that I don't believe, and know the fact that illegal gambling sites in indonesia with various brands with local names are quite a lot, these sites are unlikely to be blocked permanently, because even though they have been blocked, they can change the domain so that they can operate again.

[Hazink]

I was thinking this was the total number of players patronizing these illegal gambling sites that have been blocked. The number looks like they are trying to give every 100 citizens to one casino, because it is really a large number. Imagine the ones which have not been blocked and if the investigation is properly done, it will appear that the majority of those blocked sites are operated by groups of individuals.

[Fortify]

Indonesia’s Ministry of Communications and Digital just released the number of gambling related websites they have blocked since 2024. According to them, they have blocked 3.7M "gambling websites" in the last two years, and 38K bank accounts have been suspended and are suspected to be related to gambling operations.

In the article, it was also mentioned that in 2026 they arrested 1164 individuals suspected of involvement in illegal gambling operations, and they were able to confiscate $105 million in all of the arrests they made.

Now, regarding the 3.7M blocked gambling websites, those numbers are impressive, but what I am really curious about is how accurate they are and what their criteria were to consider a website a "gambling website". Just to be clear, I am not hating on them or anything, it's just that 3.7M gambling websites blocked in 2 years is a little hard to believe(at least for me). I can't help but think that they were blocking websites that mention the word "gambling".

Earlier in July, Indonesia deported 92 Chinese nationals who are tied to an illegal gambling syndicate that operated scams as well as online gaming. Indonesia has been paying attention to the proliferation of online gambling among children, with the ministry reporting in May that at least 200,000 children have been exposed to online gambling.

It sounds good and it's obviously keeping some people in a job, but I do wonder what ends up being classed as a gambling site - especially when they run out of the easy targets like casinos and bookmakers who are quite easy to find. Also, they could probably have bought this list off one of the many censor software companies that already do it for companies who are trying to keep their internal networks safe and prevent workers from betting from company devices. I'm guessing that some percentage of these 3.7 million "sites" are in fact just the odd page that vaguely references betting which is a dangerous line to walk. It's sad to see so many countries sticking additional restrictions on the internet when it has been such a useful tool when it was free and open, but I guess there are some countries like North Korea abusing it too.

[sunsilk]

Indonesia is of Islamic Majority, but modern generation don't pay attention to doctrines like in the past, it's impossible to eliminate gambling completely from the brains of her citizens. What brought my concern to this matter is the Draconian law I found on the article Op linked to this topic, has it gotten to that extent of threatening to take people's life for gambling? or is it a made up term in the article to scare people?

As long as the generation isn't embedded to the religion that they are born from, they won't care about the rules of their religion.

I have heard that law before but I have no idea what are the contents of it.

Too many gambling websites have been existing and they're battling for the industry for their own niche and market in Indonesia plus possible overseas users too.

[Shinpako09]

How is possible to have 3.7m gambling websites? I have seen info that there are about 1 billion web pages, if Indonesia has blocked 3.7m, this is 0.37% of the whole internet. Look unrealistic for me. If I add unblocked pages then I cant imagine to have +3.7m unique casino names and site names. These casinos might have have random name then or random combinations of symbols.

Yes, if we're just talking about casino websites, that number does seem unbelievable to me. Maybe they also included mirror domains, redirect links, and similar sites, which would explain how they reached that figure. But if they're referring to unique casino sites alone, I'd find it hard to believe unless they release complete data to support it.

As I said before, blocking them is kind of useless these days because there are still many ways to access those sites. There are also plenty of legitimate online casinos that don't fully require KYC before you can start playing, just like the one in my signature. Because of that, it'll be very difficult for the authorities to find and block them one by one.