267 teens arrested for online gambling in 7 months, already surpassing last year's total

The number of teenagers arrested for online gambling in the first seven months of this year has already exceeded the total for all of last year, data showed Sunday.

Despite gambling prevention education being conducted at schools across the country, the continued rise in teenage online gambling suspects has prompted calls for a closer review of the content and effectiveness of such programs.

According to data obtained from the Korean National Police Agency by Rep. Kim Jun-hyeok of the Democratic Party of Korea, a member of the National Assembly's Education Committee, 267 teenagers were arrested on online gambling charges between January and July this year — surpassing the full-year total of 266 recorded last year in just seven months.

The number of teenage online gambling suspects stood at 116 in 2021 before falling to 87 in 2022, then surged to 170 in 2023 and 749 in 2024. The figure dropped to 266 last year but has resumed an upward trend this year.

By region, southern Gyeonggi Province recorded the highest number at 50, followed by Busan with 36, Seoul with 33, North Chungcheong Province with 20, and northern Gyeonggi Province and South Chungcheong Province with 18 each.

Online gambling is considered the most accessible form of gambling for young people. According to the Korea Center on Gambling Problems' 2025 Youth Gambling Survey, 35.8 percent of teenagers who gambled consistently over the previous six months said online casino games were the type they engaged in most.

Online mini-games came second at 29.8 percent, followed by online card games at 17.2 percent, online sports betting at 16.0 percent and online lottery at 10.2 percent.

Schools are required by law to provide students with gambling prevention education. In 2024, all schools in seven of the country's 17 metropolitan and provincial jurisdictions — Busan, Daejeon, Sejong, Gangwon Province, South Chungcheong Province, South Jeolla Province and North Gyeongsang Province — carried out such education. Busan achieved a 100 percent implementation rate, with all 617 schools in the city conducting prevention programs during the first semester of last year.

Yet Busan still recorded 36 teenage online gambling suspects through July this year, the second highest in the country after southern Gyeonggi Province.

"The key is not whether prevention education was provided, but what was actually taught," Kim said. "Students need to be taught specifically that activities such as lending bank accounts or promoting gambling sites can constitute participation in criminal offenses, even if they are not directly gambling themselves."

He added that education authorities should go beyond simply verifying whether prevention programs were held and establish a system that takes responsibility for monitoring the actual effectiveness of the education.