Which statute addresses whom

Article 247 and the word “space”

Article 247 speaks to someone else: a person who, for gain, sets up a place or a space (공간) for gambling. The ceiling is five years in prison or a fine of 30 million won. The word “space” sits in the text next to “place”, and Korean prosecutors and courts have applied it to online operations as well as to rooms with a door.

So the two articles split along their addressees before anything else. Article 246 names the person who bets; Article 247 names the person who opens the venue. The ten operators in the Korean crypto casino comparison are all companies registered abroad, which is a fact about those companies and is left as one.

The speculative-acts law and the sports-betting law

The speculative-acts law (사행행위 등 규제 및 처벌특례법, usually shortened to 사행행위규제법) defines a speculative act as collecting money or property from many people and deciding gain or loss by chance. It licenses and regulates a short list of traditional businesses, lotteries and prize schemes among them, and none of its licenses covers online casino-style betting. The text read took effect on 27 December 2024.

The National Sports Promotion Act (국민체육진흥법) reserves sports-toto-style betting tickets, including tickets issued over an information network, to the designated foundation and its licensed operator; Article 26(1) calls any unlicensed equivalent a “similar act”. Article 48 addresses two groups under the same ceiling of five years in prison or a fine of 50 million won: a person who gambled using such a prohibited act (item 3), and a person who built or provided a system giving access to it (item 4). The version read took effect on 2 June 2026.

Casino licenses inside Korea

The Tourism Promotion Act (관광진흥법) addresses casino operators. Its Article 28(1)(4) forbids an operator to admit a domestic national, with an exception for overseas emigrants under the Emigration Act.

One casino stands outside that rule. The special act for former coal-mining areas (석탄산업전환지역 개발 지원에 관한 특별법) lets the Minister of Culture, Sports and Tourism license a single casino in one designated area under Article 11(1), and Article 11(3) switches off the foreigners-only rule for that operator, Gangwon Land. The version read took effect on 31 March 2026.

Network content and the standards commission

The Act on Promotion of Information and Communications Network Utilization and Information Protection addresses information rather than people. Article 44-7(1) lists categories of illegal information, and item 6 covers information amounting to a speculative act that a statute prohibits.

The body that issues corrective requests under that article was known as the Korea Communications Standards Commission. It now works as the Broadcasting Media Communications Standards Commission (방송미디어통신심의위원회) at kocsc.or.kr, still branded KCSC on its own site. Its count of actions per year did not load as readable text on its own pages, so no count is given here.

Tax on winnings and on virtual assets

The Income Tax Act (소득세법) addresses the person who receives the money. Article 21(1) counts lottery and similar prizes (item 2), and gains from acts under the speculative-acts law, sports-toto payouts and slot-machine winnings (item 3), as “other income” (기타소득), with an express note that the lawfulness of the underlying act is not considered.

Withholding on other income runs at 20% under Article 129(1)(6). Lottery-type payouts belong to the separately taxed items, and on those a single payout is withheld at 30% on the portion beyond 300 million won. A local income surtax is added under a separate law and is not restated here.

For virtual assets, the National Tax Service describes a separately taxed other income: 20% on gains from transferring or lending virtual assets, after a basic deduction of 2.5 million won a year. After several postponements, the start date now stands at 1 January 2027.

Rules for virtual-asset businesses

Three more statutes address exchanges, not casinos and not players. The first, the specified financial information act (특정금융정보법), requires a virtual-asset business to report to the Financial Intelligence Unit before operating (Article 7(1)), and Article 7(3) lets the unit refuse a report from a business that does not deal in won through a verified real-name account at a designated bank.

Under the same act, the Travel Rule has applied since 25 March 2022: an exchange sending virtual assets worth 1 million won or more to another exchange passes on sender and receiver details and keeps them for five years. Press reports describe a plan to remove the 1 million won floor; on 13 September 2026 no official page confirmed a new threshold in force.

The Virtual Asset User Protection Act, in force since 19 July 2024, requires exchanges to keep customer deposits and assets segregated, gives regulators supervision and sanction powers, and sets a minimum of one year in prison for market manipulation.

What is out of scope here

This is not legal advice. No lawyer sits on the editorial team, and whether any particular conduct falls under an article is decided by investigators and courts.

A license number at the foot of a casino site is a fact about the company and the authority that issued it; reading a license number deals with that number on its own terms.

This page neither encourages nor discourages play. Both would be deciding on the reader’s behalf; the job ends at putting the wording in front of them, and what safe means here sets out where that job stops.

Where to get help

The Korea Center on Gambling Problems (한국도박문제예방치유원, kcgp.or.kr) runs the national gambling helpline. The number is 1336, dialed without an area code and free of charge, answered from 9am to 10pm on all 365 days of the year. The same center counsels over chat, SMS (#1336), KakaoTalk and an online board.

Counseling does not answer a legal question, and this page does not replace counseling. They are separate doors.