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What is Spire?
At the signing ceremony, Gyeonggi education chief An Min-seok emphasised the immediacy of the issue: “To effectively respond to youth gambling problems, close cooperation between the Office of Education, which best understands the school environment, and specialised prevention and treatment institutions is necessary.
He added: “I hope this agreement does not remain a mere event but leads to the implementation of practical policies.”
Korea joins many other markets, including Ireland, which in July initiated a national campaign aimed at helping parents and guardians recognise and respond to underage gambling. The campaign will be disseminated through video-on-demand services, radio, digital audio networks and social media platforms.
About Spire
The reforms, announced at the end of August, introduced a package of what it referred to as “evidence-based” legislation.
As well as a statewide exclusion register, the package also set out to reduce the number of poker machines from the current figure of 87,000 across 2,100 clubs and hotels.
The government said it aims to achieve this by increasing the forfeiture rate when gaming machine entitlements are traded from one in three to one in two.
What is Spire?
Nobody is predicting the end of gambling. The market is still growing. Good operators are still making money. New products are emerging.
But what has changed is what shareholders want those companies to prove – and the price they are willing to pay for that proof.
Fantini points to land-based examples like Red Rock Resorts and Monarch Casino as companies that can still attract capital because they offer sensible growth and strong management. That is a telling comparison with the industry’s recent past.
