Culture, Sports and Tourism Minister Choung Byoung-gug has touched off a controversy by revealing his intention to allow locals to go to foreigner-only casinos. In a breakfast meeting with businessmen in Seoul Tuesday, he said that any casinos should admit both foreigners and locals.
Minister Choung also said that it is not right to invite foreign tourists to casinos, while banning locals here. Then he argued that a large number of Koreans wanting to go to casinos have to go abroad because of the ban, thus causing a tourism loss to the nation.
His remarks appeared to be aimed at accommodating requests by casino operators that the ban on locals be scrapped to attract more clients. Choung, concurrently a three-term lawmaker of the governing Grand National Party (GNP), had long served as a member of the National Assembly Committee on Culture, Sports, Tourism, Broadcasting and Communications.
Suspicions are growing that casino operators have continuously lobbied Choung for the lifting of the ban. Currently, there are 17 casinos in the country. Only one of them, Kangwon Land, is for Koreans as it was set up in 2000 to stimulate the regional economy of Jeongseon, a dilapidated mining town in Gangwon Province.
In fact, only Kangwon Land enjoys a boom. It recorded 421 billion won ($389 million) in net profit last year, attracting 3 million visitors. However, foreigner-only casinos find it hard to make both ends meet. Ten of them suffered loss in 2010. It is now an old story that casinos lay golden eggs.
If Choung tries to put his plan into action, he cannot deflect criticism that the loss-making casinos will be allowed to regain financial health by pinching money out of the pockets of local people. In a word, such an intention is none other than a ploy to turn Korea into a Republic of Casinos, aggravating the social malady of gambling addiction.
It would be foolish to let more and more Koreans turn to gambling only to help casino operators survive. No one can deny that Koreans are notorious for their proclivity for gambling that has already reached a dangerous point. The nation should not allow any more casinos to admit locals.
Kangwon Land has fanned gambling addiction among Koreans. A certain number of businessmen and high-income professionals gambled away all their fortune at the casino. According to the Board of Audit and Inspection, more than 400 civil servants, including some assistant minister-level officials, frequented the casino more than 20 times between January 2007 and October 2010.
When including Internet gambling as well as sports-related betting, the size of the nation’s gambling industry is estimated at 32 trillion won ($29 billion). Lifting the casino ban may bring about catastrophic consequences to the nation, not to mention gambling addicts.