Indonesia’s war on illegal online gambling has reached a new milestone, with the total number of frozen bank accounts climbing to 33,252 following the latest enforcement action by the country’s Financial Services Authority.
The most recent move, carried out on April 13, saw the OJK order the blocking of another 1,000 accounts, bringing the cumulative total to that figure since the crackdown began in 2024. The action was coordinated across three key government bodies — the Financial Services Authority under Dian Ediana Rae, the Ministry of Communication and Digital Affairs led by Meutya Hafid, and the financial intelligence unit PPATK under Ivan Yustiavandana. The scale and coordination of the operation reflects just how seriously Indonesia is treating illegal online gambling as a systemic threat to its financial system and broader society.
The mechanism driving the account freezes is the OJK’s Enhanced Due Diligence tool, which all commercial banks in the country have been instructed to deploy. Banks use the system to comb through transaction data for patterns that suggest gambling-related activity. When a transfer is flagged as potentially linked to an online betting platform, the bank must notify the OJK, which then carries out additional checks before issuing a freezing order. It is a process that has been running continuously and quietly since 2024, producing a rising count that now exceeds 33,000 accounts.
The OJK has also made clear that banks themselves are under scrutiny. As part of the wider campaign, the regulator has revoked the business licences of six banks it found to be non-compliant with its anti-gambling protocols. That step sends an unambiguous message to the financial sector — facilitating or tolerating illegal betting activity, even passively, carries serious consequences.
Indonesia’s legal position on gambling leaves no room for ambiguity. The country prohibits all forms of gambling under its Criminal Code, the 1974 Gambling Control Law, and the updated 2024 Information Technology and Electronic Transactions Law, which carries penalties of up to ten years in prison for distributing or facilitating online gambling content. There are no licensed casinos, no regulated iGaming operators, and no formal taxation framework for the sector. The government’s stated goal is not to regulate gambling — it is to eliminate it entirely.
Despite the hardline stance, the illegal market has historically been enormous. At its peak, Indonesia’s underground online gambling economy was processing hundreds of trillions of rupiah annually. More recent figures offer some evidence the enforcement push is working. Between 2024 and 2025, the number of Indonesians involved in online gambling reportedly fell from around 9.7 million to approximately 3.1 million, and the total value of illegal transactions dropped by 57% year on year. The Ministry of Communication and Digital Affairs has also removed over 1.3 million pieces of gambling-related online content since late 2024, including more than a million websites and tens of thousands of social media links.
The financial channels are being tightened too. E-wallet providers have stepped up fraud detection measures, with one major platform reporting an 80% reduction in gambling activity as a result. Authorities are also pursuing cross-border cooperation with infrastructure providers to cut off VPN-enabled access to offshore betting sites, which have historically been a key workaround for Indonesian users.
For the iGaming industry observing from outside, Indonesia remains firmly off the table as a potential regulated market. The government shows no appetite for the kind of licensing framework that has taken shape in neighbouring markets, and the enforcement trajectory points firmly in the opposite direction more blocks, more freezes, and more pressure on every layer of the financial and digital ecosystem that illegal operators depend on.
