The Gambling Addiction Plaguing Indonesia's Civil Servants

In less than a few hours, Rp 80 million in Farhan’s bank account — not his real name — vanished without a trace. It began with a single spin, lasting less than a second. Then the losses grew and kept growing, until, without realising it, they reached tens of millions as the reels turned on his phone screen that night.

“Before I’d even finished a cigarette, all my money was gone,” said Farhan, a civil servant (ASN) who admits to being addicted to online gambling, known locally as judol.

Worse still, the money Farhan used to gamble did not come from his salary as a civil servant, but from online loans. The losses left him scrambling to find replacement funds.

Unfortunately, rather than seeking additional income through part-time work, Farhan chose to return to online gambling. He admits he struggled to stop because he was driven by a desire to recoup his losses.

The result was not victory but defeat after defeat. His online loans went unpaid and piled up even further.

“It was quite a large amount, perhaps around Rp 150 million,” said the 28-year-old.

The mounting debts and his gambling addiction led Farhan to lie repeatedly.

“I asked my parents for help, but I didn’t confess it was for gambling. I told them it was for investing in shares,” he explained.

Fortunately, Farhan’s parents were well-off. They helped him pay off the debt.

When night fell and boredom set in, Farhan once again chose to chase away the tedium by gambling online. The sums involved, he said, were far larger than before. And once again came defeat after defeat.

The losses deepened his addiction. For nearly a month he did not go to the office, simply to gamble. It was only at a certain point that Farhan realised how far he had fallen, when his debts reached Rp 700 million.

“That’s when everything finally blew up and my family found out,” he said.

Once his family knew, Farhan told them everything. He was referred to a psychiatrist and treated in hospital for a full month. The psychiatrist diagnosed him with a mental disorder affecting the prefrontal cortex — the part of the brain that governs planning and emotional regulation.

To this day, Farhan says he still requires outpatient care. His psychiatrist has prescribed two medicines he must take daily.

“The first is to stabilise my mood,” said Farhan. “The other stimulates the prefrontal cortex of my brain.”

Farhan is just one of many civil servants now ensnared by online gambling. Data from the Financial Transaction Reports and Analysis Centre (PPATK) shows that 253,758 civil servants were recorded as gambling online in 2025. Around 69.9 per cent, or 164,846 people, were government employees on work contracts (PPPK), whilst the remaining 30.1 per cent, or 70,912, were career civil servants (PNS).

PPATK Head of Communications, Tri Andriyanto, said that compared with the previous year, the number of civil servants gambling online had increased more than fourfold. In 2024, he said, the figure was only about 51,611 — around 69.3 per cent, or 35,765, were PNS and 30.7 per cent, or 15,843, were PPPK.

“The transaction value rose from Rp 120.10 billion in 2024 to Rp 1.014 trillion in 2025, an increase of roughly 744.7 per cent, whilst the frequency rose from 672,956 to 8,381,985 transactions,” Tri said in a message to detikX.

Most of them — around 196,358 — were civil servants in regional governments. The remaining 39,400 or so worked in central government.

Several regions and ministries have acknowledged the high number of civil servants gambling online within their jurisdictions and institutions. One of them is the West Java Provincial Government. The head of the West Java Regional Personnel Agency (BKD), Dedi Supandi, revealed that at least 2,694 civil servants in the province had been caught up in online gambling.

Of that total, 2,663 people have been confirmed as online gamblers. They comprise 419 ASN, 634 PPPK, and 1,610 part-time PPPK. The total transactions from these gamblers reached Rp 14 billion.

“The smallest was Rp 10,000,” said Dedi, quoted by detikJabar. “The largest went up to Rp 600 million.”

Minister of Public Works Dody Hanggodo has also acknowledged the high number of employees gambling online in his ministry. In total, he said, there are around 6,000 such employees — equivalent to 16.6 per cent of the ministry’s entire workforce of only about 36,000.

“This is not my data, it’s PPATK’s data. Online gambling is a criminal offence,” said Dody, quoted by detikFinance.

The circular addresses two main aspects of disciplinary enforcement against civil servants who gamble online. The first is prevention. Reni said the circular obliges government institutions to proactively campaign against online gambling among civil servants. The second concerns handling.

“On the handling side, the disciplinary authority must follow up on every suspected violation through the applicable disciplinary enforcement mechanism,” Reni said in a written statement to detikX.

As for sanctions, Reni continued, the Ministry of Administrative and Bureaucratic Reform refers to Government Regulation (PP) Number 94 of 2021 on Civil Servant Discipline. The regulation sets out punishments for civil servants caught up in online gambling, with penalties graded according to the impact on their institution and on the state.

“Violations with a negative impact on the work unit or institution may attract light to moderate disciplinary penalties, whilst violations with a negative impact on the state or government may attract severe disciplinary penalties,” Reni added.

Nevertheless, public policy analyst Agus Pambagio believes the current rules and sanctions for civil servants who gamble online remain insufficiently serious. In fact, the number of civil servants gambling online has risen sharply since Circular Number 5 of 2024 was issued.

Ideally, said Agus, disciplinary sanctions for online gamblers within the civil service should be much firmer — for example, dismissal with dishonour, or at the very least a freeze on promotions for a minimum of ten years.

“Because if there’s nothing that harsh, forget it. It’s the same with corruption — even if the President slams the table until it breaks, nothing will happen unless someone is shot or hanged,” Agus concluded.