[Editorial] Gambling-Related Suicides Continue

A woman in her fifties who had lost everything she owned while gambling at the Kangwon Land casino hotel in Jeongseongun, Gangwon province, has taken her life by jumping from the hotel's fourth floor. Ten days ago the president of a mid-sized company who wasted away W2 billion hung himself in his hotel room. There have been seventeen suicides associated with the casino since it opened in 2000. That is largely because people were unable to restrain themselves, but the government is also not without significant responsibility for providing the original cause by building location.

As is well known, Kangwon Land is the only casino in Korea that Korean citizens are allowed to enter because the idea was to revive the economy in a former mining region. In other words, risk the potential social problems in order to revive the local economy through gambling. It may have been a last resort of sorts, but if you look at it critically the government has essentially handed over its responsibility to the gambling world. Surely enough, the negative side effects have been serious. Many have become addicted to gambling and wasted away their assets. Pawnshops have sprung up in the area, and loan sharks are doing good business.

It is questionable whether the casino has helped the local economy. There is greater tax revenue and hotels in the area have seen an increase in sales, The generally held view is that it has not substantially helped those who lost their jobs when the mines closed or other common people in the region.

It is time to take an objective look at the social and economic costs and effects. Some 1,600 people visited Kangwon Land's "gambling addition center" last year alone, so the danger of more people doing something drastic is growing. One local once asked how people can let the area be the dead end of life, and you can really sense what that means. Government officials need to agonize over whether keeping the casino operating despite the side effect is the right policy and whether an alternative industry is out of the question.

The Hankyoreh, 27 December 2005.

[Translations by Seoul Selection]