SEOUL, KOREA - The volume of money changing hands in illegal gambling is in excess of 75 trillion won. The National Assembly Budget Office said in a report "Gambling Industry Assessment by the Government" on May 21 the illegal gambling industry has grown 41 percent to 75 trillion won in 2013 from 53 trillion won in 2008, citing a figure compiled by the National Gambling Control Commission.
Meanwhile, the size of the legitimate gambling industry including horse racing and lotto was 17.1 trillion won as of 2011. This is only 22.8 percent of the illegal sector. As for the cause of the rapid growth of illicit gambling, the Budget Office said, "The range of supervision by the National Gambling Control Commission, established in 2007, has been limited to the legal gambling industry and thus has been lax about the proliferation of unsupervised gambling websites and the like."
The office also blamed a lack of budget set aside for treating gambling addiction and prevention. According to the Budget Office, the 2011 budget earmarked for gambling addiction treatment and prevention was 14.5 billion won, only 0.22 percent of the sales revenue of legally sanctioned public-sector gambling industry (6,475.4 billion won).
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