Ex casino exec jailed for manipulated survey on Dream Tower

Jul 12, 2024 Newsdesk Latest News, Rest of Asia, Top of the deck  

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A former Jeju casino executive has been jailed for 16 months by a court on the South Korean holiday island, for manipulating the results of a social impact survey that was submitted to support the transfer in 2021 of an existing Jeju casino licence to the newly-built Jeju Dream Tower resort (pictured).

Kim Woong had been chief executive of LT Casino, the name used locally for a casino that used to be at Lotte Hotel Jeju, and that provided the casino licence for Jeju Dream Tower, a purpose-built casino complex from Lotte Tour Development Co Ltd.

He was found guilty on Wednesday by Jeju District Court of “obstruction of official duties”.

The Jeju authorities had required a public survey process regarding the events that led ultimately to the transfer of gaming from Lotte Hotel Jeju to Jeju Dream Tower.

One part of the survey process was designed as a street poll among the public.

The other portion of survey activity – about the social impact of the new Jeju Dream Tower – was designed to get the views of a representative sample of local residents. It had been announced in August 2020 that the new facility had received from the local authorities the designation “suitable” in relation to social impact.

According to the court, Mr Kim had asked a polling firm hired for the July 2020 process to find “casino-friendly groups” of people, and this skewed the resident-survey portion of the process. That part accounted for 20 percent – or 200 points out of 1,000 – of the overall survey process.

The details of the evidence presented to the court were confirmed to GGRAsia by Jeju Special Self-Governing Provincial Government in response to a telephone enquiry on Thursday.

A local government official told GGRAsia that the court result should not affect the status of Jeju Dream Tower’s casino operation. A possible exception would be if another person or organisation filed an administrative lawsuit challenging the relocation process.

Two people involved in administering the survey process – said to have been commissioned by LT Casino from Gallup Korea – had admitted obstruction of official duties. They were respectively sentenced to 10 months in jail plus two years on probation; and four months in prison plus one year on probation, said the Jeju authorities.

Even at the time the local legislature in Jeju – a semi-autonomous region which has a collection of foreigner-only casinos – had approved Jeju Dream Tower’s gaming operation in March 2021, there had been controversy about the process.

In particular there had been debate about a police investigation concerning suspicions that the survey process had been subject to manipulation.

LT Casino closed in April 2021. Jeju Dream Tower’s casino opened, using that licence, in June 2021.

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