{"id":777015524,"date":"2024-05-15T09:26:07","date_gmt":"2024-05-15T12:26:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/?p=777015524"},"modified":"2026-04-22T10:14:22","modified_gmt":"2026-04-22T13:14:22","slug":"south-korea-clamps-down-on-pseudo-casinos","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/south-korea-clamps-down-on-pseudo-casinos","title":{"rendered":"South Korea clamps down on &#8220;pseudo casinos&#8221;"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The move aims to regulate so-called &#8220;hold&#8217;em pubs&#8221;.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<!--more-->\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">South Korea.- The government of South Korea has announced new guidelines to\u00a0regulate establishments known as &#8220;hold&#8217;em pubs&#8221;. The guidelines were developed by the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism, the National Police Agency, and the National Gambling Control Commission following an amendment to the Tourism Promotion Act. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Under South Korean law, gambling\u00a0for locals is prohibited\u00a0except for limited authorised facilities, including one casino (Kangwon Land\u00a0in Gangwon Province) and small bets for fun. However, so-called pseudo-casinos have hosted gambling by using a loophole. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Article 26\u00a0of the revised act states that any business offering casino-like services that result in financial gain for some participants and financial\u00a0loss to others will be considered illegal even if the operator does not profit. This includes offering points that\u00a0can be used as credit by customers. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The article mentions specific types of games: slot machines and various table games such as roulette, blackjack, dice or craps, poker, baccarat, bingo, and mahjong. Violators could face<strong> imprisonment for up to seven years<\/strong> or fines up to KRW70m (US$51,000).<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>See also:<\/strong>&nbsp;<a target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/south-korea-2925-arrested-over-alleged-illegal-online-gambling-operations\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">South Korea: 2,925 arrested over alleged illegal online gambling&nbsp;operations<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The move aims to regulate so-called &#8220;hold&#8217;em pubs&#8221;.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":176,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"is_press_release":false,"is_interview":false,"is_opinion":false,"focusai_summary":"South Korea has introduced new guidelines to regulate \"hold'em pubs,\" effectively closing a loophole that allowed pseudo-casinos to operate. The amendment to the Tourism Promotion Act expands the definition of illegal gambling to include any business offering casino-like services resulting in financial gain or loss, even without operator profit, with severe penalties for violators.","focusai_entities":"Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism, National Police Agency, National Gambling Control Commission, Kangwon Land","focusai_location":"South Korea, Gangwon Province","focusai_target_profile":"ceo_executive (1.0), regulator (1.0), compliance_legal (1.0), operator_casino (1.0), payments_fraud_aml (0.8), investor_analyst (1.0), supplier_vendor (0.9), journalist_researcher (1.0)","focusai_suggestions":[{"label":"Impact on Kangwon Land?","query":"How will the regulatory crackdown on \"hold'em pubs\" and the expanded definition of illegal gambling impact the operational strategy and market positioning of Kangwon Land, the sole authorized casino for locals?"},{"label":"Enforcement challenges?","query":"What specific enforcement challenges do the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism, National Police Agency, and National Gambling Control Commission anticipate in effectively eradicating \"pseudo-casinos\" given the historical prevalence of such loopholes?"}],"footnotes":""},"categories":[16338,156,158],"tags":[23911],"class_list":["post-777015524","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-east-asia-news","category-regulation-news","category-slider-home","tag-gambling-regulation"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/777015524","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/176"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=777015524"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/777015524\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":777015535,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/777015524\/revisions\/777015535"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=777015524"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=777015524"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=777015524"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}