South Korea’s Kangwon Land reports unexplained profit slump

South Korea’s Kangwon Land casino took a serious and as yet unexplained profit hit in the final quarter of 2016.

On Wednesday, Kangwon Land filed a notice with the Korean Stock Exchange indicating that its Q4 2016 revenue improved 1% year-on-year to KRW 410b (US $361m), while profit tumbled 31.4% to KRW 63.75b. The filing offered no justification for the significant decline in the casino’s net results.

For the year as a whole, Kangwon Land’s revenue rose 3.8% to KRW 1.7t, while profit improved 2.9% to KRW 454.6b. Kangwon Land is the only one of South Korea’s 17 casinos that allows local residents to gamble.

South Koreans aren’t allowed to legally gamble on much, besides lotteries, bullfighting and various forms of racing (cycling, boats and the ponies). The latter type of race betting is now making headlines for all the wrong reasons after a South Korean father was handed a lengthy prison sentence for making his family members predict winners – or else.