JAKARTA. Three ministries are cooperating to crack down on online gambling in Indonesia, a top official says. The Communications and Information Technology Ministry would block local users from accessing online gambling websites, Ashwin Sasongko, the ministry’s informatics applications chief, said on Tuesday.

The Social Affairs Ministry and the Religious Affairs Ministry were also involved in the push, he said.

“We will ask the Social Affairs Ministry to assess whether the services provided are indeed online gambling or merely online games. Should that ministry decide that something is an online gambling websites, we will ban the URL,” Ashwin said during a discussion on online gambling broadcast by state radio station RRI in Jakarta.

Websites offering door prizes or free lotteries would also be blocked, Ashwin said.

Efforts to combat online gambling had been underway since 2010, although only a “small number” of sites have been banned, he said, declining to discuss specific numbers.

The gambling crack down follows a similar push to block access to pornography started by the Communications and Information Technology Ministry last year.

Andi ZA Dulung, the Social Affairs Ministry’s social protection and security chief, said that that the ministry, the Religious Affairs Ministry and the Indonesia Ulema Council (MUI) would assess license requests to operate free lotteries.

The Social Affairs Ministry typically issued 8,000 such licenses a year, Andi said. “Some misuse the licenses to provide online gambling instead.”

The host of the seminar, Muhammad Yuntri, said that Indonesians gambled billions of rupiah every day on line.

“Gamblers don’t only put their money at stake, but also their vehicles and homes,” Yuntri said. (Sita W. Dewi/ The Jakarta Post)

Editor: Edy Can