The South Korean government has opened the door to integrating esports into Sports Toto, the country's only legal sports betting system. The announcement is part of the "Sports 2030 Policy Vision," presented on September 4 by the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism, with one of the priority projects focusing specifically on reforming Sports Toto. The entity was established in 2001, ahead of the 2002 FIFA World Cup, with the aim of helping fund the tournament and support the country's sports development.
For the government, the idea seems to bring back the money from South Korean bettors that is currently ending up on illegal platforms. According to figures from the ministry, cited in an article by
SPOTV, the illegal sports betting market reached 21.7 trillion won, or more than $15 billion, in 2025, nearly four times the size of the legal market. Vice Minister Kim Dae-hyun summed up the issue in early September, saying that Sports Toto has gone too long without "
any major structural reform," despite being a key source of funding for the National Sports Promotion Fund.
A system in need of reform
Concretely, an official mobile application is planned for 2027, with the goal of capturing a share of the online sales currently seen in cycling and boat racing, which are already available on mobile and have reached 44.2%, compared with just 20.1% for Sports Toto, which remains limited to PC. Sales hours, currently restricted to the 8 a.m. to 11 p.m. window, could also be extended from 2027 to cover European football matches played in the middle of the Korean night, an adjustment that would also, de facto, benefit international esports competitions held at less convenient times if they take place in Europe or the Americas. A system for real-time betting during matches is planned for 2028.
The payout rate for bettors, meaning the share of stakes returned to winning bettors, currently around 64%, is also set to increase. On the one hand, this figure is not only significantly below the roughly 90% seen on the illegal market but also lags behind other legal forms of gambling in the country, with cycling and boat racing at 72%, horse racing at 73%, and casinos at 75%. It is in this context that esports, notably as an official discipline at the Asian Games, is cited alongside table tennis, handball, and billiards as a potential addition to Sports Toto by 2028.
A long-running case
As early as 2023, KeSPA, the
LCK and the Korea Sports Promotion Foundation were already negotiating the inclusion of
League of Legends in Sports Toto from 2024, before the government rejected the proposal in April 2024. KeSPA resumed its efforts in May 2025 and then detailed its proposal in a 150-page report in December 2025. In it, the South Korean esports lobby outlined several measures, including a 1% to 2% levy on betting revenues paid by game publishers, as well as the creation of a dedicated integrity body, "K-ESIC," modeled after ESIC, a partner of ESL, BLAST and HERO Esports.
To support its arguments and proposal, KeSPA notably explained that between 2021 and 2023, the LCK's ten franchised teams accumulated more than 100 billion won in losses, with T1 alone recording an operating loss of 12 billion won in 2023 despite generating 32.8 billion won in revenue. This was attributed to the leagues' more than 90% dependence on funding from game publishers. This dynamic has changed significantly for T1, as
Sheep Esports recently reported in several articles based on discussions with the management of the country's biggest esports organization. For now, however, nothing has been decided. According to the explanations reported by
SPOTV, the inclusion of esports will depend on the criteria set by the selection committee by 2028.
