The South Korean teen gambling crisis is deepening, per official numbers, with the number of teenage cyber gambling offenders jumping by 4.4-fold in just one year. The data comes from the National Police Agency, the Ministry of Education, and the Korea Gambling Problem Prevention and Treatment Center; the South Korean media outlet Newsis reported.
It was compiled by the offices of lawmaker Kim Dae-sik of the People Power Party.
The figures showed the sharpest rise came between 2023 and 2024, leaping from 170 arrests nationwide in 2023 to almost 800 the following year.
Official figures for 2025 are not yet available, but provisional numbers show a downturn to 266. This, experts say, may be because of police amnesty campaigns that have seen officers urge teens to turn themselves in in exchange for clemency.
“Despite the rapid increase in teenage gambling crime suspects, we have not even been able to ascertain the scale of secondary damages, said Kim. “We need to look into matters like illegal loan sharks [who cater to underage gamblers].”
The report comes as controversy over “gambling-like activities” on the South Korean stock market continues to swirl in South Korea. Powerful critics have accused the government of turning domestic markets into a “casino” by approving leveraged single-stock exchange-traded funds.
South Korean Teen Gambling Crimes Spiked in 2024
Kim called on the government to develop early “gambling addiction detection” at schools.
The lawmaker said that more professional counseling, addiction treatment, and financial damages relief resources were needed. And he urged policymakers to create a “single, unified support system.”
The figures show that the southern parts of Gyeonggi Province lead the regional youth gambling rate charts.
Second place, however, was the subtropical island province of Jeju. The island is home to scores of foreign-passport-holder-only casinos, which some residents complain drive up gambling-related crime.
The capital Seoul trailed behind in third place, in front of South Korea’s second city Busan.
The ministry said that almost 96% of schools nationwide have responded by conducting special gambling-awareness education sessions.
Counseling Cases Spiral
The Korea Gambling Problem Prevention and Treatment Center reported a 44.2% rise in teenage patients between 2022 and 2025.
And it added that counseling cases “urgently referred” to medical care centers or specialized private agencies, due to severe addiction symptoms, increased by 2.2x in the same period.
This year is on course to break the center’s records, officials confirmed. Last year, it handled 668 cases. At the end of June 2026, it had already dealt with over 500.
National Police Agency officials said that tens of gambling-addicted teens are slipping through the net.
In Gangwon Province, police said 48 students at a single high school self-reported their gambling activities “all at once.”
They were soon followed “by an additional 20 students from nearby schools,” officers said.
In the city of Incheon, meanwhile, police said that a 15-year-old student had been charged with assaulting his mother for “refusing to pay his 4 million won [$2,700] gambling debts.”
And in North Jeolla Province, a teenager recently admitted to stealing cars to help fuel his gambling addiction.
Police say they are battling a teen gambling-related crime epidemic. Last year, a study found that almost 5% of teens in the city of Daejeon say they are addicted to online gambling.
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The South Korean teen gambling crisis is deepening, per official numbers, with the number of teenage cyber gambling offenders jumping by 4.4-fold in just one year. The data comes from the National Police Agency, the Ministry of Education, and the Korea Gambling Problem Prevention and Treatment Center; the South Korean media outlet Newsis reported. It
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