Blocking Gambling Sites Ineffective in Eradicating Online Gambling: One Million Blocked, Two Million Emerge Again

JAKARTA, KOMPAS.com - Cybersecurity expert Pratama Dahlian Persadha believes that efforts to block online gambling sites have not yet become an effective solution in eradicating online gambling networks in Indonesia. According to him, online gambling based on a digital system makes these networks highly adaptable and able to become active again even after enforcement actions have been taken. “Because monitoring in Indonesia is still lacking. Internet users in Indonesia are also very large. So if online gambling is not eradicated to its roots soon, it will definitely grow again,” said Pratama, quoted from Kompas TV, Monday (11/5/2026). Pratama explained that online gambling networks have the ability to duplicate systems in a short time after a raid has been conducted. “For example, if it’s raided now, they only need two or three hours to clone the system that was raided earlier,” he stated. This condition makes the site-blocking approach deemed ineffective for the long term. “Including the blocking efforts. Now one million are blocked, tonight two million will appear again. So indeed, we must find out who the actors at the end are,” he said. He stated that there needs to be tracing of the parties acting as backers, account providers, and the financial networks used. “Who is the backing, who provides the accounts. It’s impossible for them to use foreign accounts entirely; there must be Indonesian accounts,” he said. According to him, the banking system actually has the opportunity to detect patterns of online gambling transactions that tend to be small, repetitive, and ongoing around the clock. “Why are the banks silent? Actually, banks can detect accounts used for online gambling deposits because the pattern is clear,” said Pratama. “From millions of blocked online gambling websites, they actually only lead to five or six main servers,” he stated. Therefore, according to him, access termination should be focused on the core servers, not just domains that keep changing.