Gov’t Addresses Online Gambling Addiction Among Civil Servants

Jakarta. State Apparatus Minister Abdullah Azwar Anas said Monday that there should be more comprehensive measures against civil servants who were into online gambling.

The Indonesian government has waged war against online gambling. Civil servants are also among those who have become addicted, although Anas could not give the exact figures of how many government employees got hooked.

“So I don’t know how many [civil servants are actually into online gambling]. But I think the police have done a good job at fighting [online gambling], but we just need comprehensive measures,” Anas said in Jakarta.

Anas did not go into details about whether his ministry had discussed measures –including preventive ones — against online gamblers within the government. However, the ministry’s spokesperson Muhammad Averouce said on a different occasion that there would be disciplinary measures against the gambling civil servants.

“In regards to online gambling, we will continue to take disciplinary actions,” Averouce added.

These disciplinary actions will also go hand-in-hand with the criminal proceedings by law enforcement, according to Averouce.

Chief Security Minister Hadi Tjahjanto recently said that Indonesian online gamblers had various socioeconomic backgrounds, 80 percent of whom came from lower to middle-income families. Gamblers within this group usually make online gambling transactions ranging from Rp 10,000 (less than $1) to Rp 100,000. Online gamblers from upper-middle-income households usually transact between Rp 100,000 and Rp 40 billion.

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