ASEAN Beat | Politics | Southeast Asia

Indonesia Bans Polymarket After Site Offers Bets on President’s Ouster

The country has become the second in Southeast Asia to block access to the controversial prediction market.

Indonesia has blocked the online prediction market Polymarket, just days after the site set up a betting market on whether President Prabowo Subianto would be removed from office before the end of his term.

In a statement on Friday, the Communications and Digital Ministry said that it had restricted access to the platform, which constituted a form of unregulated online gambling, the Jakarta Post reported.

“The government will not provide space for any form of online gambling in Indonesia,” Alexander Sabar, the director general of digital space supervision at the Ministry, said in a statement. He said that Polymarket and similar prediction markets “contain elements of monetary betting and speculation over uncertain events, making them violate prevailing laws and regulations in Indonesia.”

Sabar added that the ban was imposed in order to protect citizens, referencing similar bans by authorities in Singapore, Brazil, and India.

Gambling is not legal in Indonesia, but online gambling sites, many of them based offshore, have become a serious problem in recent years. Indonesians reportedly lost an estimated 327 trillion rupiah ($18.4 billion) gambling online in 2023, and the authorities have struggled to block access to the sites.

Polymarket attracted attention on social media in Indonesia last week after it began offering a prediction market on when Prabowo would be “out ​as president.” As of press time, the site had taken $51,530 in bets on the question, and predicts there is an 11 percent chance he will not survive the year. Prabowo took office in October 2024, and his presidential term expires in 2029.

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