1.5m Indonesian welfare recipients face aid suspension over online gambling links

Indonesia’s ministry of social affairs has temporarily suspended social assistance for nearly 1.5 million beneficiary families flagged for suspected online gambling transactions, following a data-matching exercise with the financial transaction reports and analysis centre (PPATK).

Of those flagged under the government’s Sembako food assistance programme, over 794,000 families also receive the Family Hope Programme (PKH). Their payments have been suspended while the ministry conducts further verification.

“There are 1,494,652 beneficiary families indicated to be involved in online gambling,” said social affairs minister Saifullah Yusuf. “We are now tracing [the data], and we will have a clearer picture from the results of the investigation.”

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The figure represents a significant increase from the ministry’s previous data-matching exercise in 2025, which identified nearly 600,000 beneficiary families with suspected transactions linked to online gambling.

The verification process will involve the ministry working with PPATK and the ministry of communication and digital affairs (Komdigi) to establish whether recipients have actually misused government assistance for online gambling.

The review will also feed into the ongoing update of Indonesia’s national single socioeconomic data, which the government uses to improve the targeting of social assistance.

“They could no longer meet the criteria to receive social assistance,” Yusuf emphasised.

Beyond the verification process, the ministry said it would strengthen education and outreach among beneficiary families through PKH and social assistance facilitators.

The efforts are intended to ensure that government assistance is used for its intended purpose, while improving digital literacy and warning recipients against allowing their bank accounts to be used by others for potentially unlawful activities.

Previously, Komdigi reported more than 38,000 bank accounts linked to online gambling and illegal online loans to the financial services authority for review and potential closure.

Komdigi said it had acted against 3.7 million gambling websites and pieces of content since October 2024. OJK has also rejected 2.8 million customer applications and terminated 51,200 banking relationships linked to suspected gambling.

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