Indonesia orders banks to block over 36,000 accounts linked to illegal iGaming

The decision was made based on data received from Indonesia’s Ministry of Communication and Digital Affairs. In addition to blocking the identified accounts, banks have been instructed to close other accounts as well if they are registered under the same national identification number as individuals on the suspect list.

Financial institutions are also required to conduct enhanced customer due diligence to ensure that a user’s profile and transactions comply with financial regulations.

Tying account closures to national ID numbers rather than individual account numbers closes an obvious workaround, since operators and their local facilitators have historically relied on opening replacement accounts the moment one gets frozen.

According to OJK, the number of accounts for which restrictions have been requested rose from 33,800 to 36,100, after an additional 2,300 accounts were added to the list following updated information from the Ministry of Communication and Digital Affairs.

At the same time, the agency is working with Meta to set up a dedicated team to identify and limit the spread of advertising for banned gambling platforms on social media.

For affiliates and media buyers, the practical read is that any traffic funnel touching Indonesian users through social platforms or local payment rails now carries meaningfully higher takedown risk than it did even a few months ago, and operators without verifiable local licensing should be treated as a rapidly shrinking runway rather than a stable vertical.