Questions have been raised over Kangwon Land’s procedures for lifting casino entry restrictions on previously barred customers after it was revealed that there is no requirement for them to have undergone gambling addiction treatment.
Representative Jin Sun-mee of the ruling Democratic Party of Korea raised the issue this week after receiving data from the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism showing that, while casino visitor numbers have risen by 19% over the past three years, the number of individuals banned from entry increased by 86% to 5,612 in 2025.
Although the number of people using gambling addiction services had also doubled to 680, Representative Jin highlighted documentation from Kangwon Land in which the operator had written “not applicable” in a section asking about its counseling and education procedures prior to the lifting of entry restrictions.
“The Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism and Kangwon Land must closely analyze the reasons for the entry bans and the outcomes following the lifting of restrictions,” Jin stated. “They need to establish procedures for pre-lifting counseling, education and risk assessments, and implement a management system that seamlessly connects everything from healing programs to post-lifting follow-up care.”
The data noted that the number of professional counselors at the Kangwon Land Addiction Care Center (KLACC) had risen from nine to 13 during the three-year period in question, although this also meant the number of program participants per counselor had increased from 34 to 52.
Given Kangwon Land’s standing as the only casino in South Korea at which locals are permitted to gamble, there has been intense scrutiny of operational data from Kangwon Land in recent weeks with another report highlighting the fact that older adults now comprise half of those making repeat visits to the property’s casino.
The resort is a joint promotional project run by the national government and province of Gangwon-do for the region’s abandoned mine area district. Some 51% of Kangwon Land Corporation’s shares are held by the Mine Reclamation Corporation (under the Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy), Gangwondo Development Corp and four regional autonomous governments.
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