Civil law courts say online gambling addiction is continuing to drive Indonesian couples to divorce, even though many people are striving to hide the real reason their marriages failed.
Statistics in some parts of the country indicate further sharp rises in divorce rates. And religious courts, which handle divorce cases, are continuing to say online gambling addiction is to blame, the Indonesian media outlet Pikiran Rakyat reported.
“Nowadays, people are neatly packaging references to their spouse’s online gambling problems and hiding them in lawsuits,” said Ahmad Yani, a judge in Cianjur Regency, West Java.
A slew of Indonesian provinces made similar claims last year. Many said that online gambling has now become the leading cause of divorce in their jurisdictions.
Indonesian Divorce Rates: Courts Point Finger at Gambling Sites
At first glance, the data appears to point in the opposite direction, with courts reporting a drop in the number of divorce cases where online gambling addiction is cited as a prime reason.
But a deeper dive into the figures reveals a very different picture, Cianjur judiciary officials said.
The Cianjur Religious Court said it has witnessed a “spike” in divorce case filings in the first week of July. Numbers are up compared with the same period last year.
Last year, the court handled a total of 4,805 divorce cases, whereby 102 cited online gambling as the main cause for divorce.
In the first half of 2026, the court has handled 2,038 cases, or less than half of last year’s total. But the court said case numbers typically begin rising in August, peaking in September or October.
This year, the court said, the peak has begun earlier.
Despite couples’ attempts to disguise the reality, said the court, gambling remains the “root cause of most domestic conflict.”
“The reasons written in the draft lawsuit were often disguised as arguments about ‘a lack of income’ or the husband’s ‘irresponsible attitude,’” said Yani.
Yani said that “psychological factors or fear of being shamed” drive many women seeking divorce to turn concerns about their husbands’ online gambling habits into mere footnotes in their legal documents.
When courts begin to examine the cases, however, judges soon discover that gambling addiction is often the most important factor driving the cases, he added.
West Java: An Illegal Gambling Hotspot
Online gambling rates are higher than average in West Java, per official figures released last month. This has led to complaints from officials in Cianjur and elsewhere.
The Financial Transaction Reports and Analysis Center, the Indonesian anti-money laundering agency, followed up with a probe at the Cianjur Religious Court in 2024.
The investigation uncovered evidence of “massive financial losses” in gambling addiction-affected households.
These losses ranged from couples that had sold their cars and motorbikes to individuals who had mortgaged their parents’ houses to fund their gambling addiction.
“We don’t expect the current wave of divorces to subside,” Yani concluded.
In some parts of Indonesia, religious courts can order convicted gamblers to face corporal punishment. Last month, a court in Aceh ordered an official to administer a gambler with five lashes of the cane.
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