Illegal gambling activities at "adult game rooms" and "casino bars" is reaching serious levels. Many adult video arcades install the latest game machines and use them for what is essentially gambling. They are taking in a lot of cash, too, by giving customers winning gift certificates only to charge 10 to 15 percent for converting them to cash.
Reportedly there is one place in Andong, a city of 170,000, that did W7.5 billion in business in a five-month period. That is enough to shame your average medium-sized company. National Assemblyman Noh Woong Bae estimates that the business of exchanging the illegally circulated certificates is worth an average of W1.4 trillion, and it is a typical example of acting too late for the ruling party and the government to only now move to regulate hours of operation and lower the limit on how much can be issued in prizes. There is an urgent need for stronger measures that include abolishing the winning gift certificates that essentially promote illegal currency exchange.
Aside from the adult video arcades, the rapidly growing "game rooms" and the gambling that goes on in them is also a big problem. There are 14,000 of them nationally, and of those 80 percent offer "reel games" and "screen horseracing," activities that by their nature involve gambling. The "Friday races" that started last year in certain areas has spread nationwide through "screen horseracing," and illegal gambling operations like the "casino bars" have even spread into residential districts, as if mocking law enforcement. There are even "mini game machines," mini versions of pachinkos, outside the school supply stores you find in front of every elementary school, and so the situation is not to be taken lightly.
The game rooms that encourage the kind of speculative mentality that makes one think you can win it all at once are perfect for tempting common people in difficult circumstances. Is it not a fact that regular ordinary housewives and businessmen are taking their lives after blowing all their money away at the Kangwon Land Casino? Legal gambling industries such as keirin and horseracing have already grown to a scale comparable to the leisure and recreation industry. Our society will have a dark future if even the illegal gambling facilities remain an influence.
The Hankyoreh, 18 January 2006.
[Translations by Seoul Selection]
[Editorial] Gambling Arcades All Over the Place |
