40% of Youth Involved in 'Illegal Gambling' Start Due to Friends' Encouragement

Male Student Ratio Reaches 86%
Primarily Online Illegal Casinos

Four out of ten adolescents were found to have fallen into illegal gambling due to friends' recommendations.

On the 12th, the Seoul Metropolitan Police Agency and the Seoul Autonomous Police Committee announced that among adolescents who have directly experienced gambling, the most common reason for starting was "recommendation from friends or acquaintances" (38%). This was followed by "seeing friends or acquaintances gain financial benefits" (30%) and "internet gambling advertisements" (9%). The survey was conducted over approximately three months with 10,685 adolescents participating. It consisted of 17 questions related to youth gambling and 7 questions related to proxy deposits.

The percentage of adolescents who responded that they had experienced illegal online gambling themselves was low at 1.5%, but those who witnessed friends or acquaintances gambling reached 10.0% of the total. The gender ratio of adolescents who directly experienced gambling was higher among male students (86%) than female students (14%), and most started during middle or high school (72%). The most common type of online gambling was "illegal online casinos such as baccarat" (55%).

As for how they raised gambling funds or debts, the majority (57%) answered "allowance or repaying parents' debts." However, some adolescents responded that they raised funds through "illegal methods such as extortion and fraud in secondhand transactions" (4%), confirming that youth gambling is leading to secondary crimes.

The most significant problems caused by gambling were "debt pressure" (15%), followed by "conflicts with parents" (10%) and "emotional withdrawal and fear" (12%). Regarding the desire to quit gambling, 61% of all respondents said they "strongly want to quit," and 13% said they "somewhat want to quit."

Based on the survey results, the Seoul Metropolitan Police Agency plans to implement ▲ practical preventive education on the seriousness and harms of gambling and proxy deposits ▲ strengthening healing activities for addicted youth ▲ awareness transformation activities to improve misguided peer culture.

Kim Bong-sik, Chief of the Seoul Metropolitan Police Agency, said, "Through this survey, we recognized that a comprehensive and multi-faceted approach is essential, including not only crackdowns and investigations on youth gambling offenders but also tailored prevention, healing for addicted youth, and awareness transformation to improve peer culture." He added, "In the future, the Seoul Metropolitan Police Agency will actively strengthen cooperation with related organizations such as the Seoul Metropolitan Office of Education and the Korea Center on Gambling Problems Prevention and Healing."