Illegal online gambling in Southern Korea is rapidly becoming a serious issue facing society and also the government has taken enough.

Late last week Korean officials announced its National Police Agency (NPA) will be cracking down on the forbidden industry starting at the top with the gambling operators.

According to law enforcement, online gambling platforms are almost exclusively managed and controlled by prepared crime.

Previous costs for running an Internet gambling web site was included with a punishment of up to seven years in prison or 70 million won ($61,500) fine.

That will soon change as operating an illegal gambling network will now be classified as participating in a criminal group enterprise, an arrangement that is subject to a life sentence in jail.

‘with the charge of criminal group organization, the operators will be subject to harsher punishments of up to life sentences,’ the Korean was told by a NPA official Times.

Korean Gambling

Citizens of South Korea are largely prohibited from partaking in every sort of gambling activity.

The exception being the , a remote abandoned mining village that’s the gambling that is only in the nation Koreans are permitted to enter.

However, many hotels and resorts in towns and cities favored by tourists and business that is foreign are allowed to provide casino games, though locals are banned from participating.

The united states’s rather clear position on anti-gambling hasn’t stopped both offshore and domestic criminal activity cartels from setting up gambling stores online to focus on the untapped betting population.

‘Gambling is becoming a serious problem in Korean culture,’ the Korea Herald editorial web page wrote a week ago. ‘One regarding the steps that are first fight gambling is cracking down on … those who arrange gambling in gambling enterprises and gambling houses overseas and the ones who run unlawful Web web sites.’

Gamblers Face Stiffer Fines

It’s not going to you need to be the operators dealing with more stringent fines and perhaps seemingly exorbitant prison sentences. Gamblers will also be subject to sentences that are harsher they be discovered guilty of playing at unlawful iGaming sites.

‘Although we have prosecuted only habitual gamblers and gamblers wagering a great deal of money into the past, we’ll charge all gamblers without exceptions, regardless how often they gamble or how much money they bet,’ the NPA stated.

Needless to say, targeting the suspected hundreds of several thousand casual online gamblers in Korea would be impossible, the agency saying it’ll concentrate on those observed to possess gambled at least three times.

Instead of little to no appropriate prosecution as was previously the instance, gamblers will now face financial punishments plus the possibility of jail.

Computer code writers and web hosting companies who knowingly comply with the organizations that are criminal also be prosecuted.

Korean officials say an unique illegal on the web gambling task force will be intended to monitor the marketplace and strengthen the police’s capability to manage and indict criminals and players.

A recent string of gambling scandals in Korea has been the principal driving force in the federal government being forced to simply take additional steps in cracking down in the industry that is illegal.

Just last week a gambling ring had been uncovered, the group suspected of profiting 16 billion won ($14 million) over the past four years.