South Korean gambling addiction rates hit a new record high in 2025, new data shows, while the number of alcoholics fell to its lowest level in a decade.
The figures came from the Health Insurance Review and Assessment Service’s latest 10-year study of alcohol, drug, and gambling addiction in South Korea.
The service noted that medical centers last year treated 56,889 alcohol addiction patients, dropping for a second consecutive year, and falling by over 3% on 2022 figures, the South Korean newspaper Segye Ilbo reported.
Drug addiction cases rose to just short of 1,000 last year, a twofold rise on 2020 numbers.
But gambling addiction is on an opposite trajectory, the service’s data shows. Gambling addiction rates have increased every year since 2015, the first year the service began posting statistics. In total, health centers treated 3,508 betting-addicted residents last year.
The National Data Bureau recently announced that South Korean residents’ average monthly consumption expenditure on alcohol products has fallen for 10 consecutive quarters.
Experts, however, have dismissed the idea that there is a direct correlation between the rise in betting addiction and the fall in alcoholism.
South Korean Gambling Addiction Rises as Alcoholism Falls
Cho Seong-nam, head of the Seoul Narcotics Control Center, said easier access to drugs has helped drive up addiction, and he also blamed a rise in drug trafficking.
Scores of drug-related Telegram open chat rooms allow drug users to buy and sell narcotics from anonymous dealers, Cho said. Dealers take payment in crypto and “dead-drop” packages of drugs in public places for buyers to pick up.
Traffickers advertise their illegal wares on overseas-based social media platforms like X, often rendering the police powerless to block them.
To make matters worse, drug offenders often turn to counselors only after prosecutors get involved, the expert said.
“Offenders seek treatment to gain favorable sentencing during trials,” Cho said. “It is rare for them to realize their problems on their own or seek treatment before their cases move to the courtroom.”
Pandemic Changed Addiction Patterns, Says Professor
Professor Lee Hae-guk of the Department of Psychiatry at Uijeongbu St. Mary’s Hospital also said that during the coronavirus pandemic, “the desire to have fun and the desire to make money became concentrated online.”
The academic argued that the government needs to take gambling addiction more seriously.
“The Ministry of Health and Welfare does not define gambling addiction and similar conditions as diseases that require prevention, intervention, and treatment,” said Lee. “The fundamental problem is that the public has limited access to addiction treatment programs.”
Earlier this month, a court in the South Korean city of Cheongju found a leading Buddhist monk guilty of habitual overseas gambling.
The unnamed monk, aged in his 60s, will serve probation after a court heard he made almost 50 visits to casinos in Macao while serving as the abbot of one of the country’s top monasteries.
Most forms of gambling are illegal or restricted in South Korea. In spite of the ban, the illegal sector continues to grow, along with youth gambling figures.
The Korea Gambling Problem Prevention and Treatment Center recently reported that over 50% of school-age children in two provinces have been exposed to or have clicked on online gambling ads.
