Casino and racing venues enjoy high popularity in Korea

(South Korea).- Money has been flowing into the country’s legal gambling venues in recent years, tax authorities said last week, adding to theories that gaming remains a recession-proof business.

2010-01-11

United States

Reading time 1:30 min

According to the National Tax Service (NTS), the combined number of visitors to the country’s racing venues and the Kangwon Land casino reached over 8.3 million in 2008, which was the latest count available.

This represents nearly a 16 % increase from the 7.1 million in 2007 and more than a 37 % jump from the 6 million visitors in 2006, showing that business took off at the gambling venues when the economic downturn began to take hold. When considering the widespread illicit betting on Internet sites and at video game arcades, which is a growing social problem, it appears that tough times leave more people desperate to roll the dice.

Visitors to the country’s horse racing tracks reached over 4.1 million in 2008, nearly tripling the 1.3 million who visited bicycle racing tracks, while Kangwon Land saw 2.9 million visitors. Although the NTS has no available figures regarding the gambling population of 2009, it seems obvious that the last 12 months have been a lucrative time for the gaming venues.

Kangwon Land is currently attempting to get government approval to expand its gaming floors, saying that its number of daily visitors reaches over 8,000 now and easily exceeds 10,000 during the summer and winter holiday seasons. The casino, which opened in 2000, was built to support around 5,600 daily visitors.

Horse racing has also remained a hot business, according to the Korea Racing Authority (KRA). Visitors to the country’s horse racing venues, including the six tracks and 32 licensed betting offices operated by the KRA around the country, reached over 11 million in the first six months of last year.

The venues generated over us$ 3.2 billion during the first half of last year, which means they could likely have exceeded the us$ 95.4 billion they earned in all of 2008. In Korea, legal gambling is restricted to horse and bicycle racing, state-run lotteries and 17 licensed casinos.

Kangwon Land is the only casino open to local citizens, while the other 16 only accept foreign guests. While gambling flourished in 2008 with the tough economy, golf, which had been a quickly growing industry in previous years, slightly regressed as a business. According to the NTS, the country’s golf courses saw 12.7 million visitors in 2008, a drop from 14.5 million in 2007.