{"id":113060,"date":"2026-08-08T16:05:08","date_gmt":"2026-08-08T16:05:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/113060\/"},"modified":"2026-08-08T16:05:08","modified_gmt":"2026-08-08T16:05:08","slug":"mohegan-tribe-built-a-1-6b-korean-casino-then-lost-it","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/113060\/","title":{"rendered":"Mohegan Tribe Built a $1.6B Korean Casino, Then Lost It"},"content":{"rendered":"


\n A tribal casino operator that has found great success in the US couldn’t quite crack South Korea. The New York Times’<\/a> John Yoon traces how the Mohegan Tribe poured roughly $1.6 billion and nearly a decade into Inspire Entertainment Resort outside Seoul\u2014a glittering complex of luxury hotels, 15,000-seat arena, and a casino South Koreans couldn’t legally gamble at\u2014only to lose control to Bain Capital within a year of the full opening. Yoon explains that under Korean law, there’s a single government-managed casino resort. That meant Mohegan was trying to court tourists, and chose a location near Incheon International Airport, with an aim to draw the Chinese travelers who otherwise flocked to Macau. \n <\/p>\n


\n Mohegan did indeed become the first Native American tribe to run a casino in Asia, but it also ran into construction delays and rising costs. A planned 2022 opening ended up being delayed until February 2024, and things were slow-going at first. It ended its first year with a loss just north of $100 million. Though it never defaulted, a loan covenant breach tied to its earnings shortfall let Bain call its $275 million loan early and take over in 2025. As Casino.org<\/a> reported last year, Mohegan was left with no equity in Inspire and, as such, “no longer benefits financially from the performance of” it. That performance is improving. Under Bain, the property has tightened losses and turned its first pretax profit, an about-face that seems to be tied more to time than major strategic changes or budget cuts. \n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" A tribal casino operator that has found great success in the US couldn’t quite crack South Korea.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":113061,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[5229,58125,171,58126,33,58127],"class_list":["post-113060","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-korea","tag-bain-capital","tag-casino","tag-korean","tag-native-americans","tag-south-korea","tag-tribes"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/113060","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=113060"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/113060\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/113061"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=113060"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=113060"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=113060"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}