One in five homeless people roaming around South Korea’s only casino for locals claim to have lost over 1 billion won ($883,000) gambling, a survey showed Monday.

According to the poll conducted by the Korea Center on Gambling Problems, 21 percent of homeless casino addicts at Kangwon Land, the only casino in the country where Koreans are allowed in, said they gambled more than 1 billion won away.


About 11.3 percent of the respondents said they lost more than 1.5 billion won. Those who lost more than 500 million won accounted for 38.3 percent.

The survey was conducted on 300 homeless people staying around Kangwon Land in Jeongseon, Gangwon Province, over a six-month period from June last year.

Asked where the money came from, 37.2 percent of respondents said personal income and savings, followed by debt at 27.9 percent and disposal of real estate at 20.1 percent. Some 3.4 percent even used social security benefits for gambling.

“It was revealed that people start gambling with their earnings. After losing all the money, they dispose of real estate assets secretly from their family and fall into debt,” KCGP explained in the report.

By Byun Hee-jin (hjbandi9@heraldcorp.com)