South Koreans last year wagered the equivalent of US.6 billion (KRW20.3 trillion) on lotteries, sports betting and in the country’s government-owned Kangwon Land casino.
The results, cited as market data by South Korean news agency Yonhap, represent a 7.7 percent increase over 2015.
The last time the total industry was officially tallied, including the 16 foreigners-only casinos, was in 2015, when the market broke the KRW20 trillion mark for the first time. Foreigners-only casinos made up KRW1.24 trillion of the total, according to figures compiled by the National Gambling Control Commission at the time.
Kangwon Land, the only casino where Koreans are allowed to gamble, posted a 2.9 percent increase in profit last year to KRW454.59 billion (US$392.7 million) on revenue of KRW1.70 trillion ($1.46 billion), a 3.8 percent increase over 2015, according to a recent company filing.
The foreigners-only industry, in the meantime, is set to expand dramatically beginning next month when Paradise City, a Las Vegas-scale joint development between Paradise Co., the country’s foreigners-only leader, and Japanese machine gaming giant Sega Sammy Holdings, debuts in Incheon near the capital of Seoul.
