The court ruled that the taxation of winnings from overseas gambling sites as income was justified. The court reasoned that even if you lost money, you should still be taxed if you got the remaining stakes back in cash.

The Administrative Fifth Division of the Seoul Administrative Court (Presiding Judge Kim Soon-yeol) ruled that the plaintiff lost the lawsuit filed by Mr. A against the tax chief of Seongdong to cancel the comprehensive income tax levy.

From 5 to 2013, Mr. A exchanged game money with a credit card on an overseas gambling site and placed bets. If you bet on the results of a sporting event or the exchange rate registration range, and guess the result, you will be paid according to the odds.

It was found that Mr. A converted it into cash through gambling and took about 2014.2013 million won in 1 and about 60 million won in 2014 at the exchange rate at that time.

The tax authorities determined that about 1 million won collected by Mr. A constituted "other income" and imposed a comprehensive income tax of 3.2 million won in 2013 and 4.130 million won in 2014, including additional tax.

Mr. A filed a tax appeal claiming that the taxation was unfair, but when it was denied, he filed a lawsuit against the Seongdong Tax Office. Mr. A claimed to have put in more stakes than he had won. In effect, the logic was that they had lost more money than they had won, so they had no profits from gambling, so they had no taxable income per se.

During the period of Mr. A's use of the overseas gambling site, the money sent to the site was $4,191 and the money returned was 21,19 dollars.

However, the court did not accept Mr. A's argument and found that the other income was correct. The court held that "the plaintiff participated in the fraudulent activities stipulated by the Regulation of Gambling Act, and the proceeds were part of the property gains obtained therefrom," and that "there is no reason to believe that the receipts were deposits that were not used for gambling activities."

"Since each of the plaintiff's gambling activities is carried out independently, it is not possible to deduct all the stakes spent from the amount of other income," he added, "and only the stakes put into the winning game must be deducted."