He was once the man who gave the orders to send money.
Whenever he contacted his company in Hokkaido, funds would move. It was money earned from his pachinko parlors, a fortune built by gritting his teeth in his youth to sell just one more machine than anyone else.
When he ran out of money at Korean casinos, he would call Japan. The money would arrive, and he would sit back at the table.
In his later years, while the direction of the money remained the same, his circumstances had changed completely.
Now, the person sending him living expenses was a relative in Japan. He could no longer order transfers from his company. Neither his parlors nor his grand mansion in Sapporo remained. He had to explain his dire situation and beg for help.
Some of the money that arrived was used for basic survival. The rest was taken to Kangwon Land.
The story of Mr. Jang (pseudonym, 90), whom I met over the past few years, lies between these two types of remittances.
Born in Japan and living as a Zainichi Korean, he claimed to have built a massive fortune through the pachinko business. He stated his peak wealth was around 500 billion won. Yet, the elderly man I met recently was living near Kangwon Land, supported by his relatives.
His recollections alternated between confidence and regret. When talking about business, the young man who hated to lose would come alive; when talking about the casino, his voice grew heavy with the weight of money he could never recover and people who had left him.
He could explain his own downfall.
He remembered where he played his first game, how much he won and lost, and exactly when he should have stopped.
However, being able to explain it and being able to escape it were two different things.
Mr. Jang entered the pachinko industry in 1962.
He started as a salesman at his uncle's company in Tokyo. He was assigned to Hokkaido—the northern tip of Japan, a region with a climate and lifestyle completely different from Tokyo.
He wasn't given his own shop; he was given a territory where he had to sell someone else's machines.
“I would get secretly angry if my seniors sold even one more machine than I did. I set weekly and monthly goals and did whatever it took to meet them.”
He described his personality through stories of fights. He claimed he never backed down, even against larger opponents. This temperament of persisting until he won carried over into his business.
The discrimination and sorrow he faced as a Zainichi Korean fueled his determination not to fall behind.
Within two years of starting in Hokkaido, he achieved top-tier performance in the company. The result of outselling others created his next goal. He couldn't live as a salesman for his uncle's company forever.
After working for about four years, he decided to go independent.
With the money he had saved, he bought land in downtown Sapporo and took out bank loans. He installed 100 pachinko machines. It was his first business under his own name.
He went from being a machine salesman to a shop owner welcoming customers.
He read Sapporo's long winter as a business opportunity. He judged that in a city with heavy snow and long cold spells, people would seek indoor entertainment. He poured the connections and experience he had built as a salesman into his own shop.
He said he opened a second store just one year after the first.
As his business grew, the 1972 Winter Olympics were held in Sapporo. As the city grew, so did his number of stores. Recalling those days, he believed he had chosen the right place to succeed.
To him, money didn't come by chance.
He believed it was the result of setting goals, beating competitors, and reinvesting earnings into the business. His belief was backed by the very shops he had built.
Finally, he purchased a five-story building in the heart of Sapporo.
He converted the entire building into a pachinko parlor and installed 750 machines. He recalled it as a bold move for the time that garnered significant attention. He boasted that it was the first of its kind in Japan, showing what that building meant to him.
It was a symbol of how far he had climbed.
The young man who once ran around to sell one more machine had become a boss profiting from nearly 1,000 machines.
He drove sports cars and Mercedes-Benzes, and lived in a luxury house on a large plot of land. He learned golf. His competitive nature showed in golf as well, reaching a single-digit handicap.
He had earned money and was good at many things.
To Mr. Jang at that time, it must have seemed like there was little he couldn't control.
In 1980, his business faced a crisis: a tax audit.
Mr. Jang recalled dozens of tax officials investigating his parlors, office, and home. He admitted he had earned a lot of money but paid little in taxes. He explained that the investigation concluded after he paid additional taxes.
After that incident, a golf friend, a fellow Zainichi Korean businessman, suggested he visit Korea.
It was a proposal to attend a golf tournament in Korea together. He participated in a tournament at a golf course in Anyang. While he couldn't remember the exact name of the tournament, he pointed to that golf trip as the turning point in his life.
His purpose in coming to Korea wasn't the casino.
He intended to play golf, spend some time in Korea after a long while, and return to Japan.
His friend suggested they go to the Walkerhill Hotel. He encouraged him, saying there were things to enjoy while resting for a few days.
At that hotel, he encountered a casino for the first time and finally played a game.
He recalled his first match was blackjack. He said he played for about two hours and won 1 million won.
For a pachinko owner, the experience of sitting at a casino table, betting money, and receiving cards was novel. The speed at which wins and losses were decided was different from the money earned in business. The result of his first experience was a victory.
The problem started because his friend had lost.
His friend couldn't get up from the table after losing 2 million won. Mr. Jang stepped in, saying he would win that money back for him.
It was the arrogance of thinking he could solve someone else's loss. He had already won, and he believed that with a little more effort, he could recover the money his friend had lost.
The result that night was the opposite.
Far from winning back his friend's money, he lost the 50 million won he had brought with him.
The 1 million won he had initially won was gone. Now, his reason for sitting at the table had changed. A game that started for fun had turned into a battle to recover lost money.
He withdrew 100 million won he had deposited in a Korean bank.
He said that money didn't last three days either.
Instead of stopping, he contacted his company in Japan. The remittance amounts grew. 100 million, 300 million, 500 million, 1 billion won. The loss from his first stay at a Korean casino, as Mr. Jang remembered it, was 5 billion won.
I did not verify the remittance and game records at the time. The amount is based on Mr. Jang's own memory, which he repeated throughout the interviews.
What stood out most in that memory was the speed at which the money disappeared.
In Sapporo, he earned money by opening shops, gathering customers, and increasing machines. At the Korean casino, that money vanished in a matter of days.
Only then did he stop playing.
He said he realized that if he continued like this, he could lose his entire fortune.
However, even after returning to Japan, he couldn't accept it as a finished game.
The amount remaining in his mind was 5 billion won.
Mr. Jang analyzed the cause of his defeat.
He thought playing all night was the problem. He also blamed himself for betting recklessly while angry. He diagnosed that his judgment had been clouded by the desire to recover his principal.
Up to this point, he was reflecting on himself.
But his conclusion was to go back to the casino.
He believed that by reducing playing time, avoiding reckless bets, and hitting and running at the right moment, he could win the money back. Just as he would fix the cause of a business failure to try again, he sought an answer in the casino.
The strengths from his days as a salesman moved him again.
When he lost to others, he worked harder; when his method was wrong, he changed it; and he always met his goals. He thought he could do the same this time.
About a month after returning home, he headed back to Korea.
Mr. Jang recalled that he had deposited gambling funds into a branch of a Japanese casino operator before entering the country. He said he was provided with a suite at the hotel.
This time, it was baccarat.
The betting amounts in his memory grew rapidly. He bet 10 million won and won, then bet 20 million won and won again. 40 million, 80 million. He said he won repeatedly.
He explained that in just a few days, he had recovered the 5 billion won he had lost earlier.
That experience left a conviction more dangerous than his first defeat.
It was the belief that while he had been caught off guard at first, he could win if he did it properly.
The memory of losing big and then winning big at the casino kept him hooked for a long time. Every time he lost money afterward, it must have been difficult to discard the thought that he just needed to catch the flow one more time, just like then.
Mr. Jang got up from the table once he reached his target amount during that visit.
He explained that he knew he would lose again if he got greedy.
At least at that moment, he thought he had controlled not only the game but his greed as well.
But his memory of what happened next was completely different.
Mr. Jang explained that he couldn't receive all the large sum he had won on the spot, so he took a receipt to the Japanese branch, where he was only paid a portion. He later interpreted this as a measure to induce his return.
How the reason of going to collect money and the desire to win more became intertwined—decades later, he realized that this was what left him penniless.
What is clear is that despite having the chance to return to Sapporo and focus on his business, he chose to go to Korea again.
One big win didn't erase the old defeat; it became the basis for a new game.
After that, his trips between Japan and Korea became frequent.
He said that back then, there were no direct flights from Sapporo to Gimpo Airport, so he had to go through Tokyo. It was a long journey, but he sought out the casino. He also shared memories of being picked up by hotel vehicles upon arrival at the airport.
Money kept coming in from his Sapporo business.
That fact sustained him and, at the same time, allowed him to play for longer.
Even when he lost a large sum, there was money to bring next time. He still had shops and buildings. He believed that as long as the business was alive, he could cover the losses.
But the defeats at the casino spilled over into his family life.
In 1985, his first wife passed away. Mr. Jang stated that she had taken her own life.
His recollections included both the loss of a family with three children and the loss of his wife.
He said he stopped going to the casino for a while.
But that lifestyle didn't last long.
By then, he explained, he had already lost over 50 billion won at the casino. The massive loss and his spouse's death were reasons to stop, but Mr. Jang headed back to the casino.
He said he went more often because he felt depressed.
The place that caused him to lose money became the place he sought to avoid his sorrow.
There, he met a woman.
He remembered her as a hotel promotional staff member who was kind and fluent in Japanese and English. Mr. Jang's heart leaned toward this encounter that began with work.
Every time he came to Korea, he prepared gifts. He said he bought cosmetics, scarves, and bags at Tokyo department stores and airports. The age gap was thirteen years.
When he talked about those days, he described it as loving like a young person.
He expected to be treated as a businessman, meet someone he liked, and build a family again.
In the spring of 1986, he finally remarried the Walkerhill employee he loved.
He said he was happy in the beginning, living with his new wife in his Sapporo home. It felt as if his life, which had been split between Korea and Japan, was gathering back home.
But by then, the center of his business was already shaking.
Mr. Jang had sold his most profitable five-story pachinko building due to casino losses and debts.
It was a symbol of the success he had built since the days he ran to sell one more machine. He had to let that building go.
Still, he said he had four small parlors left. He also had a grand mansion. Income was coming in from the remaining business.
He still had a foundation to live on.
But the tranquility of his newlywed life couldn't keep him from heading to the casino for long.
He started traveling to Korea again.
Mr. Jang recalled losing tens of billions of won after that as well. A few years later, his second wife announced their divorce and left for the United States.
His second family also ended.
While he continued to think about winning back his money at the casino, an irreversible separation was taking place at home.
The decline in assets Mr. Jang spoke of translated into large numbers.
A fortune in the hundreds of billions, cumulative losses reaching 100 billion won, and remaining assets of less than 10 billion won by the time he left Japan.
Although these amounts could not be independently verified, the direction his recollections pointed was consistent.
He sold, it shrank, and he lost it again.
Even after closing his Sapporo business and moving to Korea, his casino visits continued. He said he eventually squandered the remaining money as well.
The pride of being a self-made man could not protect his final assets.
He knew how to make money. He knew how to borrow from banks to grow his shops, and how to sell more than his competitors. He expanded his business by reading what customers wanted.
Yet, he couldn't stop himself at the casino.
The memory of having earned so much might have actually made the losses feel smaller. For someone who once saw large sums come in every day, the advice to save for living expenses wouldn't have easily taken root.
However, the money coming into his account and the money he could spend were already different.
Even after the money from his company stopped, the habit of approaching the game remained.
When Kangwon Land opened in October 2000, he headed to Jeongseon, Gangwon-do.
He rented a single room in Gohan for 300,000 won a month and played baccarat. The man who was a Japanese businessman became a long-term resident of a former mining town.
The geography of his life had also changed.
After the days of traveling between Tokyo, Sapporo, golf courses, and luxury hotels, only Gohan and the casino remained.
In the past, there was a mansion to return to after a trip. There was work waiting for him at his shops.
In his old age, he was at a loss for what to do outside the casino.
“Other than the casino, there’s nothing else to do and nowhere else to go.”
That statement showed the poverty he faced as something broader than just money.
It wasn't just his assets that had shrunk. Even after the places he worked, the home with his family, and the reasons to spend his time disappeared one by one, the casino remained.
He said his relatives in Japan sent him living expenses every month.
The amount Mr. Jang described was 8 million won a month. While not a small amount for typical retirement living, he said he used only a portion for living and spent the rest on games.
When money came in, the opportunity to stabilize his life came with it.
But that money became betting funds again.
In his youth, Mr. Jang pushed himself to meet his goals. In his old age, he knew better than anyone how he had lived, yet he returned to the same place.
His business was gone, he was estranged from his family, and he was visiting the casino with money sent by relatives.
He divided his life into his glamorous youth and his miserable old age.
“I lived a glamorous life when I was young, but I never dreamed I would live so miserably in my old age.”
Such a future wasn't destined for him from the start.
He could have returned to Japan after his golf trip. He could have stopped after his first loss. He could have cut ties with the casino at the moment he believed he had won back the big money.
He could have sold the five-story building and kept the remaining shops.
He could have stayed home after starting a new family.
But at the end of every choice Mr. Jang shared, there was always the next game.
He said he was trying to recover his money.
In the meantime, things that couldn't be replaced by money left first.
Since early 2026, Mr. Jang has been unreachable.
Those around him assumed he passed away alone in a foreign land.
During his lifetime, he said, “I squandered hundreds of billions at the casino. I never knew the casino was so terrifying as my vast fortune melted away like snow. Thinking about it, I was a severe gambling addict. Even now, if I get money, I have to bet to calm my mind. Now I have no energy left, and I’ll just end my life like this.”
