Paradise City Casino

Key facts

Who can enter

Paradise City Casino is a foreigners-only casino, which is the single most important thing to know before you go. Korean nationals are not admitted, full stop. The people who can walk in are foreign nationals and holders of an overseas permanent residence permit or residence card¹. If you are a visitor to Korea, that means you. If you are a Korean citizen, it does not, and no amount of hotel booking changes that.

There is a second group that gets turned away even though they may look like foreigners on paper. Customers who lose their foreign resident status through naturalization or restoration of nationality, and repatriated emigrants, are no longer allowed to enter². In practice this catches overseas Koreans who have taken Korean citizenship back or who have formally given up their foreign status. If you hold a foreign passport and a permanent residence card from another country, you are in the clear.

One more practical catch: admission may be rejected if your period of stay in Korea cannot be confirmed². That is why the passport matters so much. A passport with a recent entry stamp shows both who you are and that you are genuinely visiting or resident, and it is the document staff will look at first.

What to bring

For a first visit by a foreign national, the operator asks for three things:

• Your passport, which is mandatory²
• A domestic residence report of a foreign national Korean, or an alien registration card²
• Where needed, a certificate of alien registration issued at a community center²

If you are a short-stay tourist, the passport alone is usually what gets checked, but bringing your alien registration card if you have one saves time.

Overseas emigrants, meaning people who moved abroad from Korea and hold permanent residence elsewhere, have a slightly different list:

• A passport, with verification of recent stamps if necessary²
• A permanent resident card of any form, whether a card, a seal or a residence right²
• A copy of the resident registration showing the emigration declaration²

At the Jeju property, an airline ticket or local card statements may substitute for missing stamps⁷. That is a useful fallback if your passport was not stamped when you entered.

The rules on ID come from the Tourism Promotion Act and the Jeju provincial casino ordinance, which is the one law worth naming here because it is what the front desk applies². You do not need to know the articles. You need the documents.

Entry is free, and open 24 hours a day

Entry costs nothing. Paradise Casino states plainly that admission is free of charge², and the Korean-language guidance repeats it: entry to Paradise Casino is free⁷. There is no cover charge, no minimum spend to walk in, and no ticket to buy. You show your passport, staff check your age and nationality, and you go in.

The casino is open 24 hours a day, all year round¹. That is not a figure of speech. It does not close for holidays, and there is no last entry time. If you land at Incheon at 3am and want to play before your connecting flight, the floor is open. The same 24-hour schedule applies across the Paradise group's Korean properties, including the Jeju Grand casino⁸ and the Busan casino⁹.

Because it never closes, the practical question is not whether it is open but when it is pleasant. Late evenings and weekends are busiest. Early morning is quiet, tables are easier to get, and staff have more time to walk a first-timer through the paperwork.

Minimum age: 19

You must be 19 or older to enter¹. This applies to everyone, foreign or not, and it is checked at the door against your passport. There is no exception for accompanied minors, and no separate family area.

Nineteen is the standard age for foreigner-only casinos in Korea. The same threshold applies at Seven Luck Casino's Seoul Dragon City branch, for example¹⁰. It is worth knowing that this is not a universal Asian standard: casinos in the Philippines licensed by PAGCOR admit players aged 21 and above only¹¹. If you are traveling around the region and you are 19 or 20, Korea's foreigner-only casinos will take you and the Philippines will not.

Age is verified from the passport, so bring the physical document. A photograph of your passport on your phone is not accepted, and neither is a driver's license from your home country.

Games on the floor

The floor at Paradise City covers the full range you would expect from a large Asian casino. Baccarat is the anchor, with roughly 60 tables⁶. Alongside it you will find blackjack at a range of limits, European and American roulette, Texas Hold'em poker, Tai Sai and Big Wheel⁶. The operator describes the space as a gaming zone for baccarat, blackjack and roulette, plus a VIP zone with dedicated tables and a dine and drink area⁴.

The scale is large. The casino holds around 160 gaming tables and 350 slot machines⁶. That makes it the biggest foreigners-only casino in Korea³, and the biggest single gaming floor in the country outside Kangwon Land, which is the one casino Korean citizens may use.

Electronic table games are worth a mention if you are new to this. They are dealer-led games played on a terminal rather than at a felt table, with lower minimums than the live tables and no pressure to keep up with a fast table. They sit alongside the slots and use the same ticket system for cashing out.

The VIP zone and how membership works

Above the main floor sits the VIP zone, described by the operator as a dedicated gaming space with the casino's top-tier service⁴. Access is tied to the casino's membership program rather than to a separate entry fee.

Membership is split into Club membership and Point membership, each with sub-tiers, and it is integrated with the hotel's Paradise Rewards RED program¹³. You join at the rewarding desk inside the casino, and the card can be reissued there after identity verification¹³. Signing up issues a new member coupon worth KRW 50,000, split as KRW 30,000 for table games and KRW 20,000 for slot machines¹³.

Tiers move on cumulative points:

• Purple: from 100,000 cumulative points on a table games basis¹³
• Gold: from 1,450,000 cumulative points¹³
• Platinum: late hotel checkout, free valet, Platinum Lounge and VIP restaurant access, a free VIP limousine, free entry to CHROMA and a CIMER spa ticket for the member¹³

If you are a casual visitor, the practical takeaway is simpler: join at the desk, collect the coupon, and let the points accumulate if you plan to come back.

Buying chips and cashing out

The process is straightforward and worth learning once, because it differs slightly from casinos where the dealer handles everything.

At a table, you sit at an open seat and buy chips from the dealer at any time. You bet with chips. When you are finished, you take your remaining chips to the cashier or exchange booth, because dealers do not exchange chips for cash⁷. That last point catches people out. The dealer will sell you chips and take your bets, but will not hand you banknotes at the end of your session.

The casino uses several kinds of chips: money chips, roulette play chips, lucky chips, roulette lucky chips, Tai Sai lucky chips and tournament chips². Money chips are the ones with cash value. The play and lucky chips are specific to certain games and promotions, so do not expect to cash those in at face value.

For slots and electronic table games, the system is ticket-based. Press the CASH OUT button and the machine issues a ticket. You redeem that ticket for won at a redemption machine or at the cashier¹. If you are playing both tables and machines, keep the two separate in your head:

• Chips go to the cashier or exchange booth⁷
• Tickets go to a redemption machine or the cashier¹

Money exchange and ATMs are available on site at the Jeju property⁸, and the same practical setup applies at Incheon: change what you need, keep your passport with you, and cash out before you leave the floor.

Getting there: five minutes from Incheon Airport

Paradise City is at 321beon-gil 186, Yeongjonghaeannam-ro, Jung-gu, Incheon⁴. It sits inside the Paradise City resort complex, about 1.1km from Incheon International Airport⁵, which the operator describes as within five minutes of the airport³. By car it is roughly a five-minute ride⁶.

That location is the whole appeal for a traveler. If you are transiting through Incheon, you can clear the airport, take the short ride to the resort, play, eat, and be back for your flight without ever going into central Seoul. The resort also runs its own hotel, so you can stay on site rather than commute.

For the other Paradise properties, the geography is different. Paradise Casino Busan sits inside the Paradise Hotel facing Haeundae beach, and it is the largest gaming floor in Busan¹². Paradise Casino Jeju is in the heart of Jeju City, about 10 minutes from Jeju International Airport⁸, with the Jeju Grand property also close to the airport and easy to reach⁸.

If you are comparing Korean options before you book, our guides to casinos in Incheon and casinos in Seoul lay out what each venue offers, and casinos on Jeju Island covers the island properties. For the wider picture of who may gamble where in the country, see Can I Gamble in South Korea? and Casinos in South Korea: Who Can Go In. If you want to know what is actually dealt on these floors, What Games You Can Play in Korean Casinos goes through it.

Dress code, photos and other house rules

The dress code is casual¹. There is no separate dress code at Paradise casinos⁷, so you do not need a jacket or formal shoes. One caveat from the group's Walkerhill property: entry may be refused to guests wearing shorts, sweatpants or sandals¹⁴. That is not a stated rule at Paradise City, but smart casual is the safe choice if you want to avoid a conversation at the door.

Photography is not allowed on the casino premises. The operator asks guests to take photos at the casino entrance instead¹. Cameras, electronic devices and metal objects are prohibited inside². In practice this means your phone stays in your pocket on the floor, and security may ask you to check bags or devices.

Bring your passport, and remember it is required for age and nationality identification². Without it you will not get past the entrance, regardless of how you look or how often you have visited before.

The other Paradise casinos in Korea

Paradise operates four casino locations in Korea: Seoul, Incheon, Busan and Jeju¹². All are foreigners-only, and all share the same core rules on age, ID and free entry.

• Paradise Casino Walkerhill, Seoul: baccarat, blackjack and poker, plus a range of slot machines³
• Paradise Casino Busan, inside the Paradise Hotel on Haeundae beach: baccarat, blackjack, roulette, poker and Tai Sai alongside slots³
• Paradise Casino Jeju: baccarat, blackjack, roulette, slots and electronic table games³

If you are weighing Paradise City against the rest of the market, note that Kangwon Land is the only Korean casino open to Korean citizens, and it admits players aged 19 and over¹⁵. Every other casino in the country, Paradise included, is closed to Korean nationals. That is the dividing line that shapes everything about how these venues operate.