More Than Half a Million Social Assistance Recipients Play Online Gambling

JAKARTA, KOMPAS - More than half a million social assistance recipients are indicated to be involved in online gambling with a total transaction value of Rp 957 billion. This is evident from the results of cross-referencing the data of assistance recipients with the data of online gambling players at the Financial Transaction Reports and Analysis Center.

Social assistance recipients who are proven to engage in online gambling will be removed from the list of beneficiaries. This aims to prevent and simultaneously provide a deterrent effect for the recipients to avoid the dangers of online gambling entrapment.

The government has found that there are 571,410 accounts of social assistance recipients suspected of being used for online gambling activities in 2024. This figure was obtained from an examination of 28.4 million population identification numbers (NIK) of social assistance recipients from the Ministry of Social Affairs, compared to 9.7 million NIK from online gambling players in the Financial Transaction Reports and Analysis Center (PPATK).

Maximum social assistance period is 5 years, except for the elderly and people with disabilities.

This means that 2 percent of social assistance recipients play online gambling. In fact, the head of the PPATK Public Relations Team, M. Natsir, revealed that there were around 7.5 million transactions related to online gambling from this group, with a total value of Rp 957 billion.

"And that is just from one bank alone. If further investigated, the figure could be even larger," said Natsir, in a press statement, quoted on Tuesday (8/7/2025).

The Minister of Social Affairs, Saifullah Yusuf, emphasized that this step is a serious effort by the government to ensure that social assistance reaches the eligible members of the community and is not misused. Online gambling is no longer merely an administrative deviation; it has now become a misuse of the state assistance system for illegal activities.

"That is the preliminary result we received from PPATK, we will analyze and evaluate it first, and once we have received all the data, we will conduct an assessment," said Saifullah.

This verification is also conducted in an effort to integrate poverty data contained in the Integrated Social Welfare Data (DTKS) owned by the Ministry of Social Affairs, the Social Economic Registration (Regsosek) owned by the Central Statistics Agency, and the National Development Planning Agency/Bappenas.

The data is also integrated with the data from the Acceleration of Extreme Poverty Eradication Program (P3KE) of the National Population and Family Planning Board (BKKBN), and the Coordinating Ministry for Economic Affairs into a single entity within the National Socio-Economic Integrated Data (DTSEN).

Public policy expert from Trisakti University, Trubus Rahadiansyah, stated that the effort to verify the accounts of social assistance recipients to ensure there is no misuse of aid, including for online gambling activities, is appropriate.

While the Ministry of Social Affairs and the Financial Transaction Reports and Analysis Center (PPATK) are working, the companions of the Family Hope Program (PKH) and the lowest environmental administrators such as Neighborhood Associations and Community Associations must actively educate the public to anticipate the potential misuse of social assistance.

"There are two suspicions in public. First, he is playing (online gambling) individually; the second suspicion is that there is someone orchestrating it, allowing this to be played in a 'smooth' manner, so to speak," he stated.

For this reason, the government needs to formulate policies such that if individuals are found engaging in play, the sanctions should be educational in nature due to their relation to social assistance. However, if there are elements of collaboration or a syndicate, a thorough investigation must be conducted.

Furthermore, the Coordinating Minister for Community Empowerment, Abdul Muhaimin Iskandar asked the public not to depend on social assistance.

The government is also continuously striving to empower the community to become independent and free from the addiction to social assistance. This is because social assistance will only serve as a temporary cushion, not a program that is provided continuously and creates dependency among the community.

"To improve their standard of living and dignity, we aim to maximize social assistance for a period of 5 years, except for the elderly and persons with disabilities," said Muhaimin.

This effort is in line with the government's target to achieve 0 percent extreme poverty by 2026, in accordance with the National Medium-Term Development Plan (RPJM Nasional) 2024-2029.