A group of teens answers questions on gambling at a treatment camp in Muju County, North Jeolla Province, Nov. 15. Yonhap

A 15-year-old boy said he wishes he could turn the clock back to before he began gambling, as he has been staying in the remote rural village of Muju for a treatment program after losing more than 100 million won ($76,934) to gambling.

The middle schooler, who asked not to be identified for fear of being recognized, said it was not only money that he lost over the past two years. What he also wants to get back is the routine, everyday life of an ordinary teenager.

“I used to play both pitcher and catcher in baseball,” he said with a dim smile in an interview at a classroom of the National Center for Youth Internet Addiction Treatment in Muju, 190 kilometers south of Seoul. “If I could go back, I’d never try my hand at gambling.”

When his teacher thought the addiction was out of control, he was asked to join a group of teenagers with similar stories about gambling problems at the treatment center aimed at providing mental counseling and getting their minds off betting.

Korea has seen a growing number of teens struggling with online gambling addiction over recent years, with most teenagers reportedly getting involved after friends or people they know at school recommended they try their luck at betting, mostly in the form of casino games like baccarat.

In a survey conducted on some 880,000 middle school first graders and high school freshmen this year, nearly 29,000 students were found to be at risk of cyber gambling, according to data released by the gender ministry in May.

This photo, provided by the National Center for Youth Internet Addiction Treatment, shows the dormitory that accommodates teens participating in the camp for the treatment of their gambling addictions. Yonhap

More teens are getting counseling for their gambling problems, with the numbers increasing by 28 times from 51 people in 2015 to 1,400 in August this year, according to data based on statistics from the Korea Problem Gambling Agency.

The National Police Agency also conducted a monthlong crackdown on cyber gambling targeting teenagers from late September through November and booked 353 people for investigation, including 39 adolescents.

The government formed an interagency team of officials from the justice ministry, the National Police Agency, the Korea Communications Commission and other agencies in order to clamp down on groups operating the illegal betting sites targeting the youth and to block such sites and ads from the public.

Eleven boys were staying at the treatment camp launched as part of an initiative of the Ministry of Gender Equality and Family. The two-week program includes one-on-one and group counseling sessions, sports and music clubs, and financial classes aimed at deterring and treating their gambling addiction.

The treatment center, founded in 2014 and transformed from an old school, initially only operated treatment programs for teens’ overdependence on smartphones and the internet but launched pilot programs for students suffering from cyber gambling addiction last year.

“All the programs designed here, including ‘alternative activities,’ which refer to things teens can do besides using their smartphones, such as learning to play an instrument or read, aim to teach them to do something other than being stuck behind the screens,” said Bae Young-tae, the head of the treatment center.

This photo, provided by the National Center for Youth Internet Addiction Treatment, shows a group of boys doing an outside activity in a forest as part of the treatment program for their gambling habits. Yonhap

Bae stressed that teaching the students to have self-control over their electronic devices is the key to all of the participants, who show tendencies to depend heavily on them.

Most of the teens at the camp said they didn’t think much of it when they first played a poker game on a mobile phone after recommendations from friends or classmates.

One middle schooler admitted nearly half of the students in his class of 28 gambled.

“A senior I got to know at school invited me to press a button on his phone, which turned out to be a miniature betting game, and I won,” he said, recalling the time his gambling habit began to take root.

As gambling bets began to grow in scale, they started borrowing money from friends at high interest rates. What made them addicted to gambling is that unlike video games, they could get what they earned from gambling in reality like “picking up free cash off the street,” another middle school boy said.

Lee Hae-kook, a professor of medicine at the Catholic University of Korea, who developed a counseling manual to treat teens faced with gambling problems, said more needs to be done by the government than running a treatment camp.

“Our society lacks a system that links the teens in question from schools and youth welfare centers to psychiatric health institutions to completely intervene in the process to support their struggles with gambling,” he said.

A paper written by a teen at the camp reads he has earned as much as 110 million won from gambling, saying he felt his “heart shake” after a big win. Yonhap

Lee also pointed out that accessibility to the digital media landscape during the COVID-19 pandemic has exposed more teens to speculative games and betting, and consequentially, increased the amount of money spent on gambling.

“Implementing technical measures, including blocking illegal gambling sites or ads from teens online, is also important to eliminate the biggest factor leading them to gambling problems, which is access to the online world.”

Meanwhile, the gender ministry has also been inspecting websites and social media posts promoting illegal gambling content and plans to ensure that businesses offering gambling or speculative games to minors, including pubs with poker tables, are banned from the entry or hiring of teens.

A 17-year-old, who joined the camp last week, said he felt stressed at first to be at a camp where all digital devices are banned and a mentor, usually a university student majoring in education, is beside them everywhere they go.

He says he learned from the classes that gambling cannot be cut out of one’s life all at once.

“It’s an illness that’s incurable,” he said, giving a pause before adding, “but I’ll try. I’ve acquired ways to relieve my stress in other ways here.” (Yonhap)