The Online Gambling Trap Makes You Fall Into The Abyss Of Equality

Photo: Special

JAKARTA - Online gambling snares are increasingly making people fall into a ravine of poverty. Based on BPS data, in March 2023 the threshold for people's income in the poor in Indonesia is IDR 550,458 per capita/month.

Based on PPATK data, the total circulation of money in the online gambling business reached IDR 327 trillion in Indonesia, this figure is worth 10 percent of the State Revenue and Expenditure Budget. Kominfo also noted that as many as 2.7 million people are online gambling players and dominantly carried out by young people with an average age of 17 to 20 years.

Why is this age group that is literate in technology actually confined to online gambling? Therefore, the Ministry of Communications and Informatics held a Digital Literacy Obral, on Friday, May 3, 2024, which raised the topic "Judi Online, Intention to Become a Conglomerate Leads to Slope."

War against online gambling is like an endless battle. As of May 3, 2024, Kominfo noted that almost half of the negative content on the internet is online gambling content. The high level of online gambling activities seems unstoppable and is getting heavier, without realizing it, people are like giving alms to online gambling dealers, without feeling aggrieved. Even though this illegal activity cannot be accounted for if it makes people lose money.

This phenomenon makes Reyga Radika as the Analyst of Social Media Content Kominfo feel overwhelmed by controlling online gambling sites circulating in cyberspace. He invites the public to both realize that online gambling losses are not playing games. It can even drag into poverty, even though the required deposit is small.

Online gambling like mushrooms in the rainy season, continues to appear out of control. Therefore, the government continues to strive to identify gambling sites.

"In a day we can get around 5,000 sites and block them every day. We also receive complaints from the public to block online gambling sites," added Reyga.

According to Devie Rahmawati as a Digital Literacy and Vocational Practitioner at the University of Indonesia, it is easy for people to access online gambling to be one of the factors why online gambling is easy to seduce the public. Not to mention, 70 percent of online gambling transactions are less than IDR 100,000.

Online gambling is difficult to eradicate because of its high business value and is designed like an online game. Without the public realizing it, online gambling also causes many times the loss. People not only lose a nominal amount of money but also have a high probability of being directed at pornographic sites, which makes a person's productivity decrease.

"When a person's brain is dissected, between those who use narcotics (drugs) and those who see pornography, pornography observers have four times more severe brain damage," said Devie.

Devie gave an example of an online gambling outbreak that even hit Ukrainian troops, thus reducing productivity and fighting spirit of its troops. In fact, many soldiers have to pawn weapons in order to fulfill their desire to play online gambling. This is one illustration that the online gambling outbreak is also infecting the world community.

If you are caught in online gambling, social support from those closest to you is important. Therefore, the role of those closest to you in supporting someone to end the habit of playing online gambling is vital, not blaming and letting it go.

According to Adriana Amalia as an adult Clinical Psychologist, online gambling is related to a person's ability to control themselves. Therefore, the existence of people closest to him also to assist online gambling addicts again finds life goals, such as reminding each other to gain losses if they continue to play online gambling.

"It is very important for the closest family or social gathering to provide negative impacts as often as possible, so that awareness of losses and dangers of online gambling arises," said Amel.

Online gambling has the potential to endanger a person's psychological condition because a 'gamblers fallacy' appears which makes someone think that if you keep trying gambling then there will be a time to win gambling. This is what encourages someone to keep trying even with a small nominal stake. So that if it is done continuously, it is not felt that it will make online gamblers lose money.

Kominfo is open to collaborating with the public to eradicate online gambling through the complaint.id website.