Min Hyung-bae: "Urgent Need to Expand Personnel and Budget for Illegal Gambling Crackdown"

Number of Reports Tripled in the Last 5 Years
Online Gambling 80.3% · Sports Gambling 19.4%

Min Hyung-bae

Reports of illegal online gambling have nearly tripled over the past five years.

Min Hyung-bae, a member of the Democratic Party of Korea representing Gwangju Gwangsan-eul, analyzed data on the "Number and Rate of Illegal Gambling Industry Monitoring Activities in the Past Five Years" submitted by the Gambling Industry Integrated Supervision Commission. According to the analysis, the number of reported illegal online gambling cases was 13,064 in 2019, but increased approximately threefold to 39,082 last year.

Illegal online gambling accounts for the largest proportion of illegal gambling activities. As of last year, out of 48,648 reported cases, 39,082 were illegal online gambling, making up 80.3% of the total. Illegal sports gambling followed with 9,447 cases, accounting for 19.4%.

Despite the continuous increase in reported cases, the Gambling Industry Integrated Supervision Commission's budget for monitoring has decreased. The budget for monitoring illegal gambling was 1.807 billion KRW in 2019 but was cut by 381 million KRW to 1.426 billion KRW last year. The monitoring staff also decreased from 13 last year to 12 this year.

Representative Min stated, “With the scale of illegal gambling exceeding 100 trillion KRW, it is rapidly spreading through smartphones and online platforms not only among celebrities but also among youth, leading to secondary crimes. Relevant authorities must expand monitoring personnel and increase the budget to respond actively.”