'56 Billion Won Bet in One Month' Powerball Illegal Game Room Operators Arrested
A monitor displaying the current status of the Powerball game. / Provided by Seoul Metropolitan Police Agency
View original image[Asia Economy Reporter Seongpil Cho] A group operating illegal gambling game rooms with about 70 franchise stores in residential areas of the Seoul metropolitan area has been arrested by the police.
The Seoul Metropolitan Police Agency announced on the 23rd that they arrested 14 people involved in operating illegal game rooms on charges of violating the Lottery and Basic Lottery Act, and detained 7 people including the ringleader Mr. A. According to the police, Mr. A and others are suspected of dividing roles and responsibilities as operation managers, distributors, and regional distributors over several years, and having franchise stores they recruited issue lottery tickets using a private 'Powerball' game site. It was investigated that they operated in a pyramid scheme by dividing the profits in stages.
It was confirmed that users bet a total of 5.6 billion KRW on this private 'Powerball' game in the past month alone. The police plan to track the scale of criminal proceeds through account tracing, recover the criminal proceeds, and pursue accomplices such as the site creators hiding overseas. Lee Yang-ho, head of the Life Order Division of the Seoul Police Agency, stated, "We will continue strict crackdowns to prevent illegal gambling game rooms that produce addicts from spreading to local communities."
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The lottery-style electronic lottery 'Powerball' is similar to Lotto. Every 5 minutes, 5 general balls and 1 Powerball are drawn, and if the selected numbers match or the sum of the numbers matches, the prize money is paid to the person who purchased the lottery ticket. Under current law, permission from the city or provincial police chief is required to operate. Issuing lottery tickets without permission is punishable by up to 3 years imprisonment or a fine of up to 30 million KRW.
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