Official language: Korean
Population: 49,540,367
Currency: South Korean Won (KRW)

Current Exchange Rate
1 EUR = 1,728 KRW
1 GBP = 1,846 KRW
1 USD = 1,167 KRW

Quick links
Online casinos in South Korea
Online poker in South Korea
Online sportsbooks in South Korea
Online bingo in South Korea

Gambling in South Korea
Gambling in South Korea was severely restricted from 1969 to 2000. After that time, only limited wagers on horse racing were permitted. During the ban, South Korean players either risked using illegal underground casinos or went to casinos abroad. In 2000 the government opened up the gambling industry once again and in a few short years it has grown tremendously.

Not everyone is excited about the recent lifting of the South Korean gambling ban. Some citizens feel gambling is immoral and are very much against it. A group called the National Council for Upgrading Korea has been very active in the campaign to shut down the industry. In spite of the opposition, the country's 20 casinos and numerous other gambling venues stand strong.

Online Gambling in South Korea
Online gambling in South Korea is technically not permitted. The government does not give any licenses out to operate online gambling websites in the country, and they would like to prevent South Koreans from using foreign internet gambling websites. The government does not do much to prevent players from accessing these sites, but instead they try to go after the sites themselves.

In February of 2009 the South Korean government took legal action against a foreign gambling website that offered Korean language services. Normally this is impossible to do because these sites are hosted in countries where the government of South Korea has no jurisdictions. In this case, though, the website had a connection with a South Korean company, so the government got to the website through that company. In these situations, only online gambling sites get in trouble, not the players who use them.