Since 2018 until 31 October this year the Malaysian Communications and Multimedia Commission (MCMC) has blocked a sum of 4,799 sites that violate the Open Gambling House Act 1952.
Deputy Minister of Communications and Multimedia, Datuk Zahidi Zainul Abidin said that the action taken by MCMC following the applications made from PDRM to take down these sites.
He added that there is a little over 20,000 telephone lines terminated due to spam text messages containing promotions for online gambling, unlicensed loans and others of the similar nature. All of which was taken down in the same time frame.
The terminations were made by MCMC which audited the data pulled from prepaid line customers, ensuring all active numbers were legit.
This is important to prevent the number from being misused by irresponsible parties for criminal purposes, including fraud and promoting online gambling.
Datuk Zahidi Zainul Abidin
During a Dewan Rakyat session today, Zahidi further stated that the data that was used was from the Personal Data Protection Department in MCMC, none of them from telcos.
In a response to Parit Assemblyman Datuk Nizar Zakaria, the drastic measures that were taken was to address the spam message issue as well as taking action against telcos that collude with syndicates selling consumers’ personal data.
In addition to that, Zahidi said the ministry is actively monitoring any activities that are related to online gambling.
How gambling works in this country is we take people’s money and it is taxed, but online gambling happens abroad, from India, Thailand, Philippines. All gamble in the country and if they do not have a license, people in Malaysia gamble abroad. We don’t get the taxes. For this reason, we propose to the Ministry of Finance to make a (new) law so that if possible we can get a license. This is how we take the money of foreigners (who want to).
Datuk Zahidi Zainul Abidin
According to the Deputy Minister, gambling in Malaysia is divided into two: lucky draws made by the Ministry of Finance and activities such as horse racing and in-casino gambling.
