Illegal Horse Racing Sites Using Korea Racing Authority Videos Uncovered
A group operating an illegal horse racing site by misappropriating live horse racing broadcast videos from the Korea Racing Authority (KRA) has been apprehended by the police. It’s been revealed that they established an office in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam, and operated the site by streaming Japanese racing videos on days without KRA events.
The Seoul Metropolitan Police Agency’s Regional Investigation Unit announced on the 25th that it has forwarded 11 operators of the illegal website on charges of violating the KRA law (illegal gambling operations). Two of the co-operators have been handed over to the prosecution while in custody.
According to current law, horse races must be organized by the KRA, and using events organized by the KRA for private gambling is prohibited.
These individuals are accused of operating a private horse racing site using real-time race videos from the KRA from December 2022 to November last year, receiving about 1.4 billion KRW in gambling funds. Originally based in Ilsan City, these individuals moved their office to Ho Chi Minh City two years ago to evade surveillance.
The race videos were provided by a Chinese company for a monthly fee of 2 million KRW. The KRA legally sells real-time race videos to 24 countries, and the police suspect the videos sold overseas were leaked to the Chinese site. On days with no KRA horse races, they also used Japanese horse racing videos.
They recruited gambling members through a YouTuber with over 20,000 followers they were familiar with or by sending random text message advertisements.
Additionally, the police arrested 18 members of a group involved in charging and exchanging gambling funds for eight gambling sites on charges of establishing a gambling space. The number of users was 17,795, and the scale of gambling funds was about 170 billion KRW.
The police have also charged 140 high-usage users of the currency exchange organization with gambling offenses, and preempted about 540 million KRW in crime proceeds before indictment.
A police spokesperson emphasized, “All online horse racing sites, except for the official racecourses run by the KRA, are illegal and using them can lead to gambling charges.”