Trapping Digital Giants in the Online Gambling Vicious Cycle

Imagine a junior high school student in a remote area of Kalimantan. His pocket money is only Rp 10,000 per day, but he already has a debt of Rp 2 million from slot gambling. This is not a film scenario. It is real. The Financial Transaction Reports and Analysis Centre, or PPATK, recorded online gambling money circulation in Indonesia reaching Rp 327 trillion throughout 2023. Alarmingly, 80 percent of the players are from lower to middle-income communities, including students and university students. Online gambling has become a national emergency that ensnares our young generation. In the past, gambling was synonymous with casinos or cockfighting arenas that required going to the location. Now, it only takes a mobile phone and Rp 5,000 data quota. They use terms like “money-making game” or “passive income”, complete with fake testimonials. The victims are no longer just adults, but already targeting minors. The impacts are chain reactions and deadly. Losing at gambling causes players to get trapped in illegal online loans. After that, the term galbay emerges, meaning failure to pay. Victims are then terrorised by DC, short for Debt Collector or debt collector. That pressure causes families to fall apart. At the end, many resort to stealing or even suicide. This is no longer just a moral issue, but already a matter of lives. The Ministry of Communication and Informatics has blocked 2.6 million gambling sites since 2018. In fact, when one is shut down, a thousand more grow. Why? Because these online gambling bookmakers are international syndicates. Their servers are abroad. They use artificial intelligence or AI to create thousands of new domains in 5 minutes. They are smart at exploiting our weak digital literacy. Many people do not know the difference between “online games” and “online gambling”. As long as we only play blocking at the downstream end, we will tire ourselves out.