North Korea Fielding Bids to Operate Casino at Ryugyong Hotel in Pyongyang

Posted on: July 29, 2024, 03:03h. 

Last updated on: July 29, 2024, 03:03h.

Devin O'Connor @CasinoorgDevinO Read More

Expertise: Asia Pacific Gaming, Commercial Gaming, Legislation, Politics.

North Korea is looking for a casino operator. But the gaming concession comes with a major catch.

Radio Free Asia broke the news this week that the North Korean government is reportedly seeking a casino resort developer to step in and complete construction on its Ryugyong Hotel in Pyongyang. The more than 1,000-foot skyscraper has sat unfinished for years.

It isn’t the first time rumblings from the hermit kingdom suggested that the country was looking to partner with a casino company. In 2018, Casino.org reported on North Korea seeking an American investment firm to help build an integrated resort casino in Wonsan. The project never came to fruition.

North Korea is home to two foreigner-only casinos at the Yanggakdo International Hotel in the Pyongyang capital and the Bipa Hotel in the Rason Special Economic Zone near the China and Russia borders.

The Yanggakdo is perhaps best known for being where Otto Warmbier stayed and allegedly tried to steal a propaganda poster. Warmbier was convicted of subversion and sentenced to 15 years imprisonment with hard labor. He was released after 17 months but was in a vegetative state when he was returned to Ohio. He died days later.

Building Vacant for Decades 

The Ryugyong Hotel was supposed to be North Korea’s modern marvel showcasing the country’s neo-futurism moxie and ability to build one of the world’s most dazzling structures.

Envisioned in the early 1980s under Kim II Sung’s reign, the supreme leader who established the country in 1948, construction on the Ryugyong began in 1987. But after the Soviet Union fell just a few years later, North Korea’s economy crashed due to its dependency on the U.S.S.R.

The economic downturn brought the construction of Ryugyong to a halt in 1992. Work resumed in 2008 and the exterior of the building was reportedly completed in April 2008.

Sometime in 2018, the North Korean government fitted a massive LED screen on the exterior of the building. The screen regularly displays propaganda on behalf of the government.

There have been reports suggesting that the building wasn’t built correctly, with claims that its elevator shafts are crooked and that the concrete used was of poor quality.

Along with a casino and hotel, the North Korean government has said previously that the Ryugyong would include restaurants, office space, and apartments.

International Heist

North Korea in 2016 successfully stole $81 million from an account belonging to the Bangladesh Bank. Some of the money was laundered through a casino in the Philippines.

In February 2016, North Korean hackers scheduled a series of withdrawals totaling nearly $1 billion from Bangladesh’s account at the Federal Reserve in New York City. After $81 million was transferred to the Rizal Commercial Banking Corporation in the Philippines, regulators at the Federal Reserve noticed a spelling error on the requests.

The hackers said the money was to be directed to the Shalika Foundation, but the word foundation was misspelled “Fandation.” The Shalika Foundation is a Sri Lankan nonprofit that constructs low-income housing and provides social services.

Bangladesh authorities said they hadn’t initiated the transfers and the remaining withdrawals were canceled. The $81 million was never recovered. It’s believed that about $29 million was laundered at the Solaire Resort in Manila.