Indonesia police chief tells Parliament online gambling is fueled by FOMO, as Polri reports 665 cases and Rp1.5tn seized

Speaking at the Parliament complex in Senayan on Monday, National Police Chief Gen. Listyo Sigit Prabowo said online gambling in Indonesia is increasingly driven by social and economic factors, while enforcement faces cross-border hurdles and sophisticated money-laundering tactics.

Indonesia’s National Police Chief Gen. Listyo Sigit Prabowo used a working meeting with Commission III of the House of Representatives (DPR) at the Parliament building in Senayan (Central Jakarta) to outline the scale of the online gambling problem and the policing response.

According to Prabowo, police handled 665 online gambling cases over the past year, naming 741 suspects, seizing assets valued at Rp1.5 trillion, blocking 5,961 accounts, and taking down 241,013 online gambling-content sites, alongside 1,614 preventive activities.

He also argued that demand-side drivers are now impossible to ignore, citing fear of missing out (FOMO) and unemployment among the factors pushing people into online gambling, alongside low education levels, limited tech understanding and wider social inequality.

On the enforcement side, Prabowo said investigations are complicated by differences in legality, regulation and tax systems across jurisdictions, with servers and transactions often located outside Indonesia. He added that police have seen money-laundering patterns built around layered transactions using multiple accounts, including overseas accounts and shell companies.

Prabowo pointed to recent takedowns of sites such as SPINHARTA4, SASAFUN and BMW312, and said police continue to pursue money-laundering cases linked to gambling proceeds, including a recent Rp530 billion seizure and arrests tied to platforms cited in the hearing.

The message from Senayan is that Indonesia’s next phase will hinge on cutting payment rails and laundering pathways as much as blocking websites — because the networks, not the platforms, are what keep the market alive.