A steep rise in the sale of lottery tickets is alerting government overseers. The National Gaming Control Commission under the Prime Minister’s Office is reported to be considering issuing a “stoppage order” for the online Lotto as the total lottery sales this year have nearly hit the year’s ceiling of 2.8 trillion won. From Jan. 1 to Nov. 30, Lotto and other ticket sales totaled 2,794.8 billion won. As sales in December will easily exceed 300 billion won, the year’s total will pass the authorities-set limit for the first time since the current gambling oversight system started in 2009.

A lottery suspension during the year-end season will invite strong complaints from lottery fans, and it will be too severe a blow to the nation’s 18,000 Lotto ticket sellers and numerous others related to the lottery business. So it is more likely that the gaming commission would raise the ceiling to absorb the sales increase.

The start of pension-type Lotto and the decision to carry over unclaimed prize money this year drastically increased lottery sales. Yet, the sales of other forms of betting have also grown sharply. NGCC statistics reveal that the six major gambling businesses ― horseracing, game cycling, motorboat racing, casinos, Lotto and sports lottery ― had a combined total revenue of 17 trillion won ($15 billion) last year or 1.5 percent of national income. This is compared to 6.2 trillion won in 2000.

These figures only cover the legal, open kinds of gambling, which are allowed under the excuse of providing entertainment for the people and generating funds for some charitable programs. Correct calculation is simply impossible if we are to add the huge scale of illegal gambling in this country, in “officetel” backrooms, Quonset huts in the countryside and the numerous Internet gambling sites. Authorities checked 7,971 online gambling sites last year.

Many businessmen and entertainers are known to be squandering dollars in overseas casinos. One university research team has come up with the incredible figure of 80 trillion won as the “socio-economic cost” of gambling in Korea. Loss of productive manpower accounts for two-thirds of the social cost. The rest is the damage to domestic and industrial finances and extra expenditures for the medical treatment gambling addicts and their criminal punishment.

Gambling used to decline in times of economic difficulties, but we are now witnessing a reversed trend. The Gwacheon Horserace Park is crowded with jobless people and so are the cycling and motorboat gaming places in Seoul suburbs, where they seek jackpots as a way out of their hopeless lives. Government authorities need to make a fundamental review of their gaming policies instead of continuously raising the lottery sales ceiling before the nation earns a dishonorable reputation for gambling.