A survey found that 2 out of 10 youths (20.9%) in Seoul witnessed gambling.
The Seoul Metropolitan Police Agency announced on Jan. 28 the results of the "2025 Youth Gambling Survey." The survey was conducted from Oct. 27 to Dec. 9 last year on 34,779 student youths in Seoul.
When the Seoul Metropolitan Police Agency surveyed 10,685 student youths in Seoul in 2024, 10.1% had witnessed gambling. That roughly doubled in one year.
The response rate for having experienced gambling also rose from 1.5% in 2024 to 2.1% last year. In particular, during the same period, the grade when most began gambling shifted earlier, from first year of middle school to fifth grade of elementary school.
About 80% of youths who experienced gambling did so online. The most common device/place used for gambling was the smartphone at 64.6%. The top reason for starting to gamble was recommendations from friends/peers at 40.3%.
For gambling funds, their own allowance or savings accounted for a majority at 76.2%. However, 2.8% said they raised funds through illegal means such as extortion, fraud, or school violence.
The share who said they had incurred debt due to gambling was also 13.8%. Common ways to repay debt included asking family/parents for help (15.1%) and borrowing from acquaintances (13.9%), but there were not few illegal methods such as pawning high-value goods (2%), using illegal lending businesses (1.4%), and extortion/violence (1.3%). This means youth gambling is becoming a pathway to secondary crimes.
Based on the survey results, the Seoul Metropolitan Police Agency will run a "youth gambling intensive prevention and management period" from February to April. It will strengthen intelligence activities related to youth gambling and collect illegal accounts to block the flow of funds.
The Seoul Metropolitan Police Agency also decided to push to block illegal gambling sites in cooperation with relevant agencies such as the Korea Communications Standards Commission.