South Korea’s Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism is reported to have launched an investigation into foreigner-only casino operator Grand Korea Leisure (GKL) and its Seven Luck Casino operation amid allegations the company may have artificially inflated the number of visitors in 2025.
Local media outlet Yonhap News Agency reports that there are questions over the number of uncarded casino visitors listed in GKL’s internal data, with the company having listed a total of 1,117,165 visitors of which 721,817 held membership cards and 395,348 uncarded.
It also reveals that the proportion of uncarded customers among total casino visitor numbers has steadily increased from 25.2% in 2023 to 32.0% in 2024 and 35.4% last year.
This is considered unusual because uncarded customers are heavily restricted, with HKL’s own AML Guidelines preventing them from being able to purchase for play, exchange chips for cash or check or utilize currency exchange.
It is also noted that GKL’s target visitation rate – the rate at which the company had achieved its target visitation numbers in any given month – have fallen from 91.6% in June to 69.1% in July and in the “low 60% range” in August following the internal investigation that first raised concerns. The proportion of decline is not dissimilar to the proportion of previously reported uncarded visitors.
The allegation is that the number of uncarded visitors who entered using their passports was significantly inflated when reported to the Ministry.
Yonhap News Agency said that visitor numbers are used as a quantitative indicator of performance when GKL undergoes management evaluations by the Ministry of Finance and Economy.
In 2025, GKL received a “C” or average grade in the 2025 Public Institution Management Evaluation, while President Yoon Doo-hyun was rated “unsatisfactory” in the evaluation of his performance in fulfilling management contracts as an institution head.
Yonhap quoted a GKL official as saying, “We are currently actively cooperating with the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism’s request for data.
“Allegations of ‘fictitious counting’ or ‘visitor inflating’ are not confirmed facts.”
It also quoted a representative of the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism as confirming, “We are currently verifying the facts and will take necessary measures depending on the results. We plan to utilize all available methods to ascertain the facts.”
GKL is a partially government-owned, publicly traded company of which a majority 51% stake is held by the Korea Tourism Organization (KTO) – a state-owned entity under the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism. The remaining 49% is held by public investors, including institutional and retail shareholders.
The company operates three foreigner-only casinos in Seoul and Busan.
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