Casino and North Korea
The fact that there are any North Korea casinos will probably come as something of a surprise to most people. The regime is so restrictive that mobile phones are not allowed at all. When they were handed out to regional officials, they were then confiscated again as they had become an alternative process of communication, outside the State structures.
So the query of whether or not there are actually any functioning North Korea casinos is unanswered. There might be four in the capital and there is definitely an empty unused four on the Chinese border, but beyond that, nobody knows. However, one should not underestimate the capacity of this country to surprise. There are indeed North Korea casinos, four of them apparently, possibly a third. The first of North Korea’s casinos is in Pyongyang, the capital. Called, with breathtaking originality, the Pyongyang casino, it is a tiny difficult to know whether it actually exists. Certainly, North Koreans are not allowed to enter it if it does, and the number of tourists to the country each year is only a few hundred. Perhaps, it caters to those few diplomats and foreign businessmen who are posted there, but that would be a little clientele.
The second of North Korea’s casinos that may or may not exist is the Seaview Casino Hotel in Rajin. Sixteen tables and 52 slots are what is listed. However, plenty of think that this is either a renaming or another name for the Emperor casino in Rajin-Songbong, a free trade area that North Korea is trying to establish on the border with China. The Emperor casino is the third and last of North Korea’s casinos that is definitely known to exist. It was set up to cater to the cross-border trade from China: all forms of betting in China being illegal until recently. No North Koreans, other than the staff, were allowed in to the complex at all (and they would not have the money to play there anyway). When the Chinese found that government officials were embezzling money and then losing it at the casino, they closed the border to gamblers. The Emperor thus closed as it had no customers.
