Youth gambling addiction patients 3.3 times in 3 years...Your medical bills quadruple
Sep 16, 2025
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According to data submitted by Seo Young-seok (Democratic Party of Korea), a member of the National Assembly's Health and Welfare Committee, the number of youth gambling addiction patients increased 3.3 times from 64 in 2022 to 210 in 2024, and medical expenses quadrupled from 110 million won to 430 million won during the same period. This means that the number of high-cost inpatient treatment patients is increasing significantly beyond simple counseling or outpatient treatment.
According to the National Police Agency's data analysis, the number of teenagers arrested for gambling crimes increased more than eight-fold from 76 in 2022 to 631 in 2024, and among them, the number of crimes committed by teenagers aged 10 to 13 increased significantly from two to 72 during the same period. In particular, the number of online casino arrests soared from two in 2022 to 93 in 2024, showing the largest increase, while illegal Sports Toto also increased from 36 to 109, revealing an all-round spread.
Among the total 631 boys aged 10 to 13 in 2024 and those aged 14 to 18, the number of men increased about 7.7 times from 75 in 2022 to 577 in 2024, and the number of women also surged from 1 to 54 during the same period. By age, 16-year-olds increased about 7.5 times from 17 to 128, 17-year-olds increased about 4.6 times from 25 to 115, and 18-year-olds increased more than 10 times from 18 to 185. The cumulative total in August this year was 269, which is about 3.5 times higher than in 2022.
According to data from the Korea Gambling Problem Prevention and Healing Center, the number of youth gambling counseling has tripled from 1,460 in 2022 to 4,144 in 2024, and 3,273 people have already received counseling by August this year. The number of participants in preventive education has expanded to 2.03 million in 2024.
Rep. Seo Young-seok stressed that `illegal gambling among youths is a social addiction problem that cannot be solved only by crackdowns,' `It goes beyond problems that harm individuals' academic studies and health, leading to family collapse, recurrence of crimes, and an explosion in social costs, which causes enormous losses to society as a whole.' He then stated that there is an urgent need for responses such as expanding youth specialized treatment institutions, strengthening counseling personnel, and expanding prevention education in schools and communities.
This article was translated by Naver AI translator.
