Jakarta – President Joko Widodo (Jokowi) has firmly voiced the prohibition and dangers of online gambling. In his statement, the President invited the public not to get involved in gambling, both offline and online.
“Don’t gamble.. Don’t gamble.. Don’t gamble.. both offline and online. “It’s better if you have good fortune, save that money or use it as business capital,” stressed the President.
For this reason, President Jokowi officially formed an Online Gambling Eradication Task Force chaired by Coordinating Minister for Political, Legal and Security Affairs Hadi Tjahjanto through Presidential Decree Number 21 of 2024 concerning the Online Gambling Eradication Task Force.
The Presidential Decree has 15 articles, regulating the Chair of the Task Force, its members, and their duties. The task force has members in the prevention sector. Members of the prevention sector are a number of related stakeholders from the Ministry of Religion, Attorney General’s Office, TNI, Polri, BIN, to OJK.
President Jokowi emphasized the negative impacts caused by the practice of gambling, such as loss of property, family breakdown, and increased crime and violence in society.
“Gambling is not just risking money, it is not just a fun game with prizes. “But gambling is risking the future, both our own future, our family’s future and our children’s future,” said the President.
For this reason, the Head of State emphasized that the government continues to seriously carry out efforts to eradicate and combat online gambling. According to the President, currently more than 2.1 million online gambling sites have been closed by the government, in addition to the formation of a task force.
Meanwhile, the Coordinating Minister for Political, Legal and Security Affairs (Menko Polhukam) Hadi Tjahjanto said that the large number of middle to lower economic groups who play online gambling has resulted in high use of online lending services or pinjol.
“Regarding online gambling and online loans, these are two sides of the coin. “What’s even more pity is that people who play online gambling lose out on loans from Pinjol,” said Hadi.
Therefore, he emphasized that the Task Force will carry out eradication from upstream to downstream so that people are not trapped in the two vicious cycles of online gambling and online loans.
In line with the President, the Minister of Communication and Information (Menkominfo), Budi Arie Setiadi, revealed a number of negative effects of online gambling in Indonesia. According to him, slot gambling makes family life less harmonious and causes more problems.
“Online gambling not only damages the family economy, but also relationships within the family itself,” he said.
The Minister of Communication and Information stated that digital progress does contain bad ironies or problems that can become a disease in society. This has also had an impact on the rise in various cases of domestic violence (KDRT) and even murder due to being trapped in loans or online gambling.
According to Budi Arie, the biggest impact felt by online gambling is among women.
“Husbands and wives are fighting, children are losing hope because the economy is damaged. And the biggest victims of online gambling are women. “Because it’s the men who gamble, the victims whose shopping money is cut are the women,” he explained. (*)
