Rising risk of youth gambling in Korea
For children growing up as true digital natives, smartphones and the internet are integral to daily life, shaping how they socialize, learn and play.
The widespread adoption of digital devices — accelerated by the shift to online learning during COVID-19 — has significantly increased adolescent screen time. As a result, the boundaries that once separated learning, gaming and other online activities have become increasingly blurred, creating pathways for gambling to become embedded in everyday routines.
Against this backdrop, youth gambling in Korea has emerged as a serious social concern. According to the 2024 Youth Gambling Survey, 4.3 percent of elementary (Grades 4–6), middle and high school students reported having gambled at least once in their lifetime. When projected nationwide, this figure represents an estimated 170,000 students. More concerning, nearly 20 percent of these students reported gambling regularly over the past six months, revealing that gambling is not a one-time experiment, but an emerging behavioral pattern.
The survey also illuminates the broader social contexts in which youth gambling takes place. About 27 percent said they had seen or heard friends gambling, with exposure increasing by grade level. Nonetheless, 94 percent reported not intervening. Taken together, these findings indicate that gambling is increasingly normalized within peer networks, complicating prevention efforts and necessitating responses beyond individual interventions.
A common misconception is that students wager only small sums and thus face limited harm. Data from the Korea Problem Gambling Agency reveals that certain adolescents seeking counseling had accumulated gambling debts ranging from 1 million to 5 million won ($750 to $3,750), while more extreme cases exceeded 100 million won.
As debts mount, some students turn to online loan sharks or become involved in theft and fraud. In the most severe cases, students who are unable to repay their debts are coerced into recruiting peers into gambling, effectively serving as intermediaries for their creditors — a pattern reminiscent of exploitative debt-bondage seen in other illicit markets. All these examples make clear that youth gambling is far from trivial, carrying serious financial, legal and psychological repercussions.
From a developmental perspective, youth are particularly vulnerable to gambling-related harm. During adolescence, the brain regions responsible for moral judgment, reasoning and impulse control are still maturing, while sensitivity to reward, novelty and risk remains heightened. Gambling triggers dopamine release that reinforces behavior and engages neural mechanisms similar to those involved in substance-based addiction.
As a result, chance-based wins and instant rewards encourage continued gambling. This profile renders adolescents especially susceptible to high-stimulation digital environments. Therefore, regular gambling among students should be understood not as individual moral failings, but as predictable responses to systems deliberately engineered to exploit heightened reward sensitivity.
In addition, adolescents are exposed to influencers and online streamers showcasing big wins or coveted in-game items, prompting a desire to narrow the gap between who they are and who they appear to be. The panoply effect intensifies this pull by shifting attention from the reward itself to its social meaning and identity value — namely, a sense of competence, status and belonging. In gambling-like environments, this identity-laden appeal is especially compelling, turning small bets into repeated participation.
Social dynamics exacerbate the problem. Adolescents often gamble within peer cultures where behavior is shaped by group norms and expectations. In these settings, gambling becomes closely tied to belonging and social acceptance, driven as much by pressures to fit in as by the pursuit of material rewards. These dynamics are particularly concerning. Gambling behaviors formed during adolescence can persist into adulthood, increasing the risk of long-term gambling-related harm, including addiction.
Despite the gravity of the problem, Korea’s gambling prevention efforts remain fragmented and largely reactive. Prevention education is typically limited to once-a-year warnings delivered to entire classes or grade levels, rather than integrated as sustained, developmentally appropriate instruction. Regulatory responses likewise focus primarily on blocking illegal sites after harm has occurred. Compounding these shortcomings, the survey data shows that as students advance in grade level, confidence in the effectiveness of prevention education declines, suggesting that current approaches fail to engage those most vulnerable.
Korea needs a comprehensive, evidence-based prevention strategy — one that begins early and integrates gambling literacy into the core curriculum to support informed and healthy decision-making. Parents must be actively engaged, as many underestimate how easily gambling-like content reaches their children; schools should move beyond one-sided notices and invest in sustained parent education.
Meanwhile, the government must strengthen regulation of gambling-like mechanics in online games. This includes weak age verification systems, unlimited micro-transactions and advertisements that normalize gambling for minors. Finally, youth gambling should be recognized as a public mental health issue, with early screening, counseling and accessible support services central to a coordinated, data-driven preventive framework.
Ma Kyung-hee is an editor and researcher in Seoul.