for early access to the latest igaming videos!
and get the latest igaming news first!
Indonesia’s financial intelligence unit says online gambling deposits fell in 2025, but the payment trail is getting harder to follow.
The Financial Transaction Reports and Analysis Center (PPATK) put the value of online gambling deposits last year at Rp36 trillion, down from Rp51 trillion in 2024. Yet PPATK officials say the bigger story is how the money enters the ecosystem: QRIS has become the largest deposit channel in 2025.
Speaking at the National Police’s Criminal Investigation Agency (Bareskrim) in Jakarta on Jan. 7, 2026, PPATK Deputy for Analysis and Examination Danang Tri Hartono said deposit behavior has shifted away from bank transfers and e-wallets.
“There has been a shift in deposits… and now many deposits are made using QRIS,” Danang said, according to Tempo.
Faster deposits, quicker layering
PPATK’s concern is not QRIS as a consumer product, but the speed it gives illegal operators to move funds and then layer them into harder-to-trace channels.
Danang said QRIS transactions can move money rapidly from one account to another, and that deposit funds are then routed into crypto. He added that operators are now separating the infrastructure used for deposits and withdrawals, with withdrawals handled through crypto, which “complicates the tracing process” for PPATK and investigators.
QRIS, Indonesia’s standardized QR-code payment system, was introduced by Bank Indonesia and is designed to make QR payments “faster” and more convenient, with broad adoption across payment providers. That same ubiquity, PPATK suggests, can be exploited when illegal gambling networks cycle many small payments through intermediaries.
A crackdown that’s shrinking volumes, but not ending the cat-and-mouse
The deposit drop comes alongside broader indicators that illegal gambling money flows have cooled from 2024 levels amid enforcement and blocking measures. Indonesian officials have cited PPATK data showing that overall online-gambling turnover fell sharply in 2025 compared with 2024.
Investigative reporting has also highlighted QRIS-and-crypto laundering tactics as a recurring pattern in Indonesia’s illegal gambling economy, with networks using QR payments to collect money before converting and dispersing it through crypto rails.
What PPATK is watching next
For PPATK, the shift to QRIS changes where red flags may appear: not only in conventional bank accounts, but also in merchant QR acceptance, mule-account behavior, and the points where funds jump from the domestic payment system into crypto.
International assessors have repeatedly urged Indonesia to continue strengthening risk-based supervision and asset-recovery capabilities in financial-crime cases, a pressure that now intersects with the online gambling fight as payment methods evolve.
Source: Tempo
