South Korea orders Seoul casinos to close as COVID-19 infections rise

South Korea has ordered Seoul-area casinos to close as the region tries to control a surge in COVID-19 infections.

On Sunday, South Korean officials announced the country had notched 271 additional COVID-19 infections, the first time in nearly a week that new infections had fallen below 300. But this minor victory wasn’t enough to lower the weekly average and thus the country is imposing tough new restrictions that are set to take effect at 12am on Tuesday (24).

The regions of Seoul, Gyeonggi and Incheon have been ordered to ‘Level 2’ of the country’s COVID-19 mitigation strategy, which prohibits all events at which over 100 people might gather. Bars, nightclubs and, yes, casinos will be ordered to close entirely for the next two weeks.

The news is a further blow to South Korea’s struggling foreigner-only casino operators, some of which learned last week that their maximum capacity would be lowered to 20% of normal as the impacted regions went from Level 1 to Level 1.5.