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The eight foreigner-only casinos on Jeju Island are at a critical juncture, with regional competition heating up and some venues seeing visitor traffic dwindle. According to industry analysts, the problem goes beyond market saturation and hints at much deeper gaps in tourism infrastructure and coordinated marketing strategy that undermine growth potential across the entire gaming sector.
The Real Problem Isn’t Too Many Casinos
Amanda Ga, associate vice president for external affairs at Jeju Shinhwa World, the purpose-built resort that launched in October 2017, with its casino opening in February 2018, offered a more counterintuitive view on Jeju’s challenges. Rather than eight casinos inherently being too many, the island’s gaming industry needs integrated strategic planning across tourism, air transport connectivity and entertainment offerings, working in concert.
Ga emphasized that if tourism development, MICE business cultivation, air route expansion, and entertainment content had been coordinated from the outset, the eight-casino landscape would not represent a structural problem. She stressed the necessity for what she termed “functional redesign and long-term restructuring” of Jeju’s overall marketing and tourism positioning to attract sustained international visitation.
Historical Origins of Current Structure
Felix Lee, a longtime casino industry observer and former head of management innovation at Grand Korea Leisure Co Ltd, the company that runs three foreigner-only casinos on the Korean mainland, traced Jeju’s current licensing setup back to the tourism waves from Japan in the 1980s and 1990s. At the time, local authorities lacked much experience in overseeing casino operations. As a result, some early licensing decisions did not consider how competitive the market would eventually become.
The Licensing Framework Question
All current Jeju casino licenses remain perpetual in nature, carrying neither time limitations nor specific conditions requiring operators to deliver particular economic or social benefits to the local community. This open-ended structure contrasts sharply with performance-based licensing regimes found in major international gaming jurisdictions.
Both Ga and Lee favor evolving Jeju’s licensing system toward regular evaluations of operators’ environmental, social, and governance practices alongside measurements of local employment and community impact. Lee specifically advocates for renewable, performance-based licensing already under discussion by Jeju authorities, an approach more typical of established gaming markets globally.
The Current Market Reality
During 2024, Jeju’s gaming market concentrated heavily among two large integrated resorts. Jeju Dream Tower, run by Korea Exchange-listed Lotte Tour Development Co Ltd, attracted 69.8 percent of the island’s KRW458.91 billion (US$312.2 million) annual gaming revenue. Jeju Shinhwa World commanded 15.1 percent of market GGR, leaving the remaining six casinos to contest approximately 15 percent of total gaming revenue.
The island continues functioning predominantly as a domestic tourism destination. In the nine months through September, Jeju attracted nearly 10.17 million total visitors, though foreign arrivals comprised fewer than one-fifth of this number at approximately 1.74 million, albeit up 15.6 percent year-on-year. Chinese tourists dominated overseas visitation at roughly 73.8 percent of foreign arrivals.
Expanding the Market Rather Than Dividing It
Ga suggested that growth strategy should focus on expanding Jeju’s overall gaming market size rather than expecting existing operators to intensify competition over static demand. She identified air connectivity development as among the most critical infrastructure gaps limiting international visitation growth.
Strategic Infrastructure and International Connectivity
Most international flights to the Jeju route go through Korean mainland airports, creating additional visa requirements even for those travelers who are otherwise visa-exempt. While there has been recent progress, direct international air routes from key source markets are still underdeveloped, resulting in additional points of friction in the visitor journey that make Jeju’s casino sector less able to effectively compete against established regional gaming destinations offering superior accessibility and integrated resort experiences.
Source: GGR Asia
