South
Korean Arcades Exploit Gambling Law Loopholes
As reported by the JoongAng
Daily: "According to the Ministry of Culture
and Tourism, 13,000 adult arcades, betting rooms
equipped with simulated horse racing games or
slot machines and offering modest payouts for
modest bets, are now in operation nationwide.
That is an increase of 50 percent from 2002.
Gamblers are supposedly allowed to bet limited
amounts of real money on the horse races shown
on 200-inch display screens, or pull the handles
on slot machines in the hope of winning gift
certificates.
"An
analysis by the JoongAng Ilbo of data from 2002
to 2005 provided by Roh Woong-rae, a representative
of the governing Uri party, showed that there
is an average of 159 arcades per district in
Seoul, up 70 percent from 2002. Gangdong-gu
with 386 arcades ranked as the No. 1 gambling
area of the city, followed by Seocho (347) and
Sungdong (295). In those districts, the number
of arcades exceeds the number of pharmacies
or laundries.
"According
to a government analysis, the operators of adult
arcades make profits estimated at 1.2 trillion
won ($1.17 billion) annually, which means 33
billion won is being lost by gamblers to such
arcades each day.
"Experts
say that changes to the law covering singing,
video and gaming rooms approved in 2001, which
permitted the opening of adult arcades by simply
registering them at a district office, is the
reason for the large growth in the number of
these gambling facilities. Although the Culture
Ministry announced last December that arcade
users could not spend more than 90,000 won per
hour on one game machine, and that gift certificate
prizes won could be no larger than 20,000 won
each, a significant number of arcades have illegally
reprogrammed machines to raise the amount that
can be spent per hour and offer prizes worth
several millions of won each…"
|
