[2025 Audit] Park Soo-hyun: "Illegal Gambling Market Reaches 103 Trillion Won... Monitoring Personnel Remain Stagnant"

The scale of the illegal gambling market has grown to reach 103 trillion won, yet the response from the National Gambling Control Commission (hereinafter referred to as the Commission) remains stagnant. There has been only a slight increase in enforcement personnel, and concerns have been raised that the related budget is not being adequately reflected.

According to data submitted by Park Soo-hyun, a member of the National Assembly's Culture, Sports and Tourism Committee from the Democratic Party of Korea, on October 20, the number of field reports and self-monitoring cases of illegal gambling industries rose from 217 cases in 2020 to 909 cases in 2024, more than a fourfold increase. The number of online illegal gambling reports and self-monitoring cases also increased by 2.4 times, from 20,928 cases in 2020 to 50,439 cases in 2024.

The size of the illegal gambling market is estimated to have surpassed 103 trillion won as of 2022, according to the most recent statistics (National Gambling Control Commission's "5th Illegal Gambling Status Survey"). Assemblyman Park analyzed, "As the economic downturn continues, the mentality of 'getting rich quick' is spreading, leading to a contraction of the legal gambling industry and a rapid influx of users into more accessible online illegal gambling."

The number of public officials such as professional monitoring agents and field investigators, who are mainly responsible for cracking down on and supervising illegal gambling, increased only slightly from 26 in 2022 to 32 this year. In particular, as the core of illegal gambling shifts to online and overseas server-based platforms, the difficulty of enforcement has risen sharply, yet the number of personnel remains woefully inadequate compared to the number of cases being monitored.

Gambling is rapidly spreading beyond adults to the youth population. According to the police, the number of youth prosecuted for gambling offenses increased more than eightfold, from 74 in 2022 to 597 last year. In addition, according to a special police crackdown last year, 47.3% of the 9,971 individuals apprehended were under the age of 19.

Although urgent action is needed, such as expanding enforcement personnel, the related budget has not been included. According to the "2026 Government Budget Plan" submitted by the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism to Assemblyman Park's office, the Commission's operating budget is set at 4.837 billion won, an increase of 562 million won compared to this year's 4.275 billion won. Most of this is allocated for "rewards" and "research service fees." The budget for establishing an illegal online gambling monitoring system remains frozen at 445 million won, the same as last year.

Assemblyman Park stated, "The current situation, where gambling is spreading even among youth, is not simply a case of deviant behavior but a precursor to social addiction." He emphasized, "The recent controversy over employment scams in Cambodia is also an extension of the gambling mindset that one can make a lot of money with little effort." He further added, "If the National Gambling Control Commission does not increase monitoring personnel in a timely manner, we may miss the golden time to escape becoming a nation addicted to gambling," and suggested, "It is also necessary to consider operating the Illegal Gambling Industry Monitoring and Reporting Center as an independent entity, such as an Illegal Gambling Industry Monitoring and Reporting Office."