Authorities on one side of the island of New Guinea have broken up an online gambling ring while telecom providers on the island’s other side have been warned to knock off their text message gambling services.
On Tuesday, the Papua Police cybercrime unit announced the arrest of three individuals accused of running an illegal online gambling business since January. The trio were arrested at their base of operations in a retail shop in Timika, which is located in the Indonesian-controlled western half of the island.
Police said the trio utilized a website based in Munich, Germany to process their wagers, while collecting bets and paying out winnings in person. The operation reportedly enjoyed daily betting turnover of between Rp 600m to Rp 700m (US $45k to $52,500), although Chief Inspector General Paulus Waterpauw said his team’s initial examination of the seized technology suggested daily handle “possibly got up to Rp 2b ($150k) per day.”
News of the arrest was followed one day later by authorities in Papua New Guinea (PNG) – the independent eastern half of the island – warning local mobile communications service providers that offering gambling services via text messages would no longer be tolerated.
Paulus Ain, Commissioner of the Independent Consumer and Competition Commission (ICCC), told local reporters that his office had been looking into the growing phenomenon of SMS gambling, which he claimed had “gone into hibernation mode until it has just been raised again.”
Ain reminded mobile network operators that all gambling in PNG required the approval of the National Gaming Control Board (NGCB), while complaining that mobile operators had been warned “several times” that they “are not entitled to do this.”
Special projects officer Jacqueline Waffi said that the ICCC would enlist the help of the Information and Communication Technology Authority, which has the enforcement power to crack down on anyone providing mobile gambling products.
In 2007, PNG passed its Gaming Control Act, which authorized casinos, lotteries, sports betting, poker and online gambling, although local residents were prohibited from partaking in the latter activity.
Despite the law’s passage, there are as yet no land-based casinos in the country, although there are video poker machines in some tourist hotels. There are also no PNG-licensed online casinos, but in 2012, Irish mobile network provider Digicel was allowed to launch a PNG Lotto mobile lottery service.
