Legislators want gambling legalized in Samosir island

Apriadi Gunawan, The Jakarta Post, Medan

The Jakarta administration's controversial plan to establish a centralized gambling den in Kepulauan Seribu (the Thousand Islands) has prompted others to call for a similar move to be introduced in North Sumatra.

Local legislators from the Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI Perjuangan) and the Golkar Party, the two largest factions in the North Sumatra legislative council, suggested on Friday that the provincial administration localize gambling in Samosir island.

They argued that the proposed localization on Samosir was crucial, as gambling in North Sumatra had increasingly been open.

Samosir island, located in Lake Toba, was the right place to host a gambling center so as to boost the promotion of tourism at the popular lake, the legislators added.

"Without it (gambling), tourism activities might go into decline," Marzuki, chairman of the Golkar faction in the North Sumatra legislative council, told The Jakarta Post.

He said that in practice gambling was found unchecked everywhere in North Sumatra, despite such practices being prohibited under the existing law, while security authorities were reluctant or powerless to crack down on them.

"The idea of gambling localization should be taken into consideration, so we will not become a hypocritical nation," he said.

Another local councillor, Marlon Purba, who is from the PDI Perjuangan faction, said that if gambling in North Sumatra were localized on Samosir island, it would further promote tourism in the province on the one hand, and generate huge additional revenue for the provincial administration on the other.

According to him, more than Rp 5 billion was in circulation from illegal gambling in North Sumatra every day, and around Rp 1.8 trillion per year.

"Just imagine it, illegal gambling bosses rake in trillions of rupiah per year. The localization of gambling is expected to ensure that at least 30 percent of that money is channeled back into the annual tax revenues of the province," Marlon said.

In a response to the idea, spokesman for the provincial administration Eddy Sofyan said North Sumatra Governor T. Rizal Nurdin had yet to consider it as the presidential decree banning gambling activities had not yet been revoked.

Eddy said gambling in North Sumatra had been localized at Merdeka Square, Granada, in Medan, when Marah Halim served as the province's governor and Soekarni as the city's mayor in the 1970s.