South Korea Casino to Pay Back $520,000 to a Gambler

Kangwon casino in South Korea has been orderd to pay an amount of 580 million won ($520,000) to a gambler who lost the huge sum of the money playing at this casino's tables. Korea Times has reported that gambler with the surname Kim, was constantly losing money after gambling on 181 occasions from April 2003 to April 2007.

He asked Kangwon Land to deny him entry to the casino after he lost around 10.8 billion won. When it comes to self exclusion, South Korea Gambling laws allow gamblers to request a lift from the ban but only three months after the request is made.

If the second self exclusion request is made, a gambler is required to wait a year before the ban can be lifted. However Kangwon Casino, the one place where South Korean gamblers can play, apparently forgot about the rules. Kim, who couldn’t resist his gambling urges, asked the casino to lift the ban only a month after the initial request was made and the casino happily obliged.

When Kim realized that his total losses are about 20.8 billion won ($18.6 million), he sued casino in order to try and redeem some of the money he had lost. At the Seoul High Court, Kim claimed that casino has violated the rules on entry bans, requesting all of the money that he had lost to be returned to him.

However Seoul High Court said that casino is only 20% responsible for Kim’s losses after the self-exclusion request. Court added that Kim was even more responsible because he failed to quit gambling. Seoul High Court explained that he was pretty much aware of the fact that he will lose money again.

The Kangwon Casino was ordered to pay 580 million won ($520,000) to Kim because they violated the rules on entry bans by lifting the ban before the required period passed.

According to the Korea Times the Kangwon casino has faced 23 lawsuits, filed by the former customers since its opening in 2000.

One of the biggest lawsuit that casino faced was filed by the gambler named Jeong in November 2006. Jeong demanded 20.8 billion won in damage compensation claiming that the casino was coerced him to keep coming back despite his heavy losses. As Jeong claims, the casino was granting him irregular favors like allowing him to place bets over the legal limit.

An independent lawmaker Song Hun-Suk said that Kangwon Land's problem is that they are breaking their own rules to earn more money quickly by allowing gamblers to bet over the legal limits and by being flexible about the entrance ban.