S. Korea Gets Harsh with Rampant Sports Match-Fixing
By wchung | 11 Jun, 2026

Determined to quell an embarrassing sports match-fixing pandemic as it prepares to host the 2018 Winter Olympics, on Tuesday the South Korean government announced it would show “no-mercy” for participants.

It has already imposed prison terms and lifetime bans from sports on athletes and managers of leading professional sports teams, and is uncovering many more participants on a daily basis.

About 80 soccer players and online betting brokers have already been indicted for or convicted of match-fixing and about 50 more players have been banned from the sport for life. One coach was indicted for blackmailing a player to share his match-fixing profit. One player committed suicide.

The deep vein of corruption running through Korea’s professional soccer league was first uncovered last May when prosecutors became suspicious that the outcomes of some matches had been fixed by bribes from brokers working for illegal Internet gambling sites.

Prosecutors expanded the probe to other sports based on brokers’ confessions and found that corruption had spread to virtually every corner of the nation’s professional sports scene.

“We believe the recent turn of events has created a state of emergency that threatens to shake the foundation of sports,” said Culture and Sports Minister Choe Kwang-shik.

In early February prosecutors tied 15 professional volleyball players, including two women, as well as five brokers, to match fixing. Four of the players were banned for life by the Korean Volleyball Federation. The Sangmu Shinhyup, a team filled by athletes doing mandatory military service and run by the Defense Ministry, pulled out of the season after one of its players was implicated.

Even a motorboat race was arrested by prosecutors for taking cash from a gambling broker for sending text messages predicting the outcome of an upcoming race.

Acting on a broker’s confession, prosecutors are now zeroing in on pro baseball, the nation’s most popular sport along with soccer. The Korean Basketball League, meanwhile, sought to forestall a probe by announcing that an internal investigation had turned up no evidence of fixing.

For a nation addicted to the internet and computer games, it was hardly surprising that the scandal had also spread to professional “e-sport” where prize money is offered for online computer games. In 2010 four players were given suspended prison terms for fixing matches. E-league games are so popular that cable channels are dedicated to matches and thousands gather at e-sports arenas featuring giant screens.

The government sanctions Sports Toto as the nations only legal online sports gambling service, but about 1,000 illicit sports gambling sites in operation on the Internet last year, according to the government-run Korea Institute of Criminology. The illegal sites, which allow unlimited betting, are hard to track down because they keep servers overseas and frequently change domain names and IP addresses.

Illegal online sport gambling in S. Korea has become a 3.5 trillion won ($3.1 billion) industry according to police estimates. Much of this money has also been channeled into sports fixing.

A new law that went into effect last week punishes anyone using illegal gambling sites with a heavy fine and up to five years in prison.

Determined to end the taint to its national image, the government is promising a cash reward for whistle-blowing players and leniency for those who confess. It is also seeking to reduce the incentive to engage in the corrupt practices by doubling the minimum annual salary for all pro-league athletes to 24 million won ($21,000).

The new moves are considered long overdue by many S. Koreans who have been aware of embarrassing practices that have tainted sports in Korea for decades. The corruption has touched even the youngest amateur athletes whose parents are often touched up by coaches for donations for more playing time for their children.