Indonesia reports shift in online gambling deposits to QR payments and crypto

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The Backstory

A moving target for regulators

Indonesia’s online gambling economy is shrinking on paper yet shifting under the surface, complicating enforcement. Officials say turnover and deposits have dropped sharply this year, but the payment rails are changing in ways that make the money trail harder to follow. The Financial Transaction Reports and Analysis Center, known locally as PPATK, has reported a broad decline in 2025 activity compared with last year, a trend that Communication and Digital Affairs Minister Meutya Hafid has framed as evidence that the crackdown is biting. In October, the government said turnover through the third quarter hit Rp155 trillion, down 57% from 2024, with a steep fall in the number of participants as well, according to official figures outlined by the ministry.

Authorities have doubled down on the digital front. Hafid’s ministry announced that more than 2 million sites and pieces of related content were taken down in a two-week surge, while tens of thousands of bank accounts linked to gambling operations were flagged for action, as detailed in the mass takedown bulletin. Yet officials acknowledge that enforcement is now a game of adaptation. Payment behavior is moving away from conventional bank transfers and mainstream wallets and into systems that are harder to monitor in real time. That shift helps explain why headline transaction volumes can fall even as investigators report greater complexity in the money flow.

Enforcement moves from screens to rails

Jakarta’s strategy has extended beyond content blocking to the plumbing of payments. PPATK has suspended or frozen scores of accounts tied to suspected gambling schemes, including dormant accounts that investigators say were bought or sold to move funds. The agency’s chief emphasized that the suspensions were temporary and reversible following verification, addressing public complaints from users whose accounts were swept up. The mechanics of the push are detailed in PPATK’s account-freeze disclosure.

The account actions are a signal that regulators are mapping how gambling networks recycle deposits, launder balances and pay out winnings. By targeting shell accounts and mule networks, investigators are trying to raise the cost of moving money inside Indonesia’s banking system. But as the state intensifies scrutiny over banks and e-wallets, operators and intermediaries have an incentive to jump to alternative rails. That is where QR-based payments and crypto wallets come in, offering speed and reach across retail platforms and exchanges that can be harder to police if controls are fragmented.

Conflicting signals from the cabinet

The public message on progress is not uniform. Hafid has credited coordinated monitoring, fast takedowns and closer cooperation with PPATK for the slide in reported activity, as shown in the ministry’s update on declining gambling turnover. She has also urged broader collaboration with global counterparts, calling cross-border gambling a threat to the country’s digital safety, a stance echoed in the government’s takedown summary.

Yet Yusril Ihza Mahendra, minister for legal, human rights, immigration and corrections affairs, has delivered a more sober assessment. He said the campaign has fallen short after a year of enforcement under President Prabowo Subianto, arguing that focusing on platforms and operators without disabling the funding systems leaves the networks intact. He urged wider use of anti-money laundering mechanisms to trace, freeze and seize illicit flows, and called for stronger international cooperation. His critique and policy prescriptions are laid out in the minister’s remarks on enforcement gaps.

The split underscores a central tension: headline declines can coexist with more sophisticated evasion. If operators are migrating to QR codes and crypto-linked channels, then takedowns and bank freezes may push activity into corners of the payment stack where attribution is tougher and timelines for intervention are longer.

Following the money gets harder

PPATK’s own numbers highlight both the scale and the evolving pattern. In addition to the turnover drop, the agency has described how deposits have fallen, with lower-income users making up the bulk of participants. Those data points are repeated in the government’s summary of account referrals and transaction declines, which also notes a sharp year-over-year reduction in gamblers earning under Rp5 million a month. That shift suggests either effective demand suppression among vulnerable users or a move by higher-risk operators and bettors into channels less visible to standard monitoring.

Regulators are responding by tightening scrutiny of account ownership and transaction patterns. The mass freeze of more than 28,000 accounts, including long-dormant ones, is notable because such accounts are often used as jump points to split and layer funds, as detailed in PPATK’s enforcement note. But as banks clean up their books and e-wallets harden controls, QR aggregators and crypto rails can serve as parallel paths. QR systems are designed for ease of use across wallets and banks, while crypto transactions can break the link between deposit accounts and withdrawal endpoints. That separation complicates tracing even when investigators have transaction metadata, lengthening the time from detection to interdiction.

Regional echoes and the crypto question

Indonesia is not alone in confronting payment intermediaries’ role in illegal betting. In Turkey, authorities arrested the owner of the payments platform Papara and a dozen others on allegations the firm processed gambling transactions and routed funds through hundreds of bank accounts and multiple crypto wallets. Prosecutors seized assets and outlined how fees allegedly accrued at each step, according to the Papara enforcement case. While the regulatory frameworks differ, the playbook looks familiar: strike at the financial facilitators, map the network, seize assets and test whether deterrence scales faster than evasion.

For Indonesia, the stakes are twofold. First, the government wants to protect lower-income users, a group that PPATK says has been overrepresented among gamblers but is shrinking in headcount. Second, it aims to prevent online gambling from hardening into a cross-border organized crime industry with deep links to unregulated payment channels. That ambition will hinge on whether agencies can extend know-your-customer, transaction monitoring and asset-freeze capabilities into QR networks and crypto flows without bottlenecking legitimate commerce.

The past year has shown that pressure can push volumes down, at least in the metrics the government tracks. It has also shown how quickly operators switch rails when legacy routes get blocked. The next phase will test whether enforcement can keep shortening the gap between pattern shifts and policy responses, and whether international cooperation can close the cross-border seams that QR aggregators and crypto intermediaries exploit. The answer will determine if Indonesia’s apparent gains become durable or if the money simply keeps moving one step ahead.