Daehun called.
- You doing all right in the Philippines?
“Yeah. It’s fucking peaceful without you here.”
- I’ve picked up this habit lately where I say weird shit without even realizing it, and I think I learned it from you.
“You learned well. That’s Seoul National University-style education. If you engrave it into your body, it helps a lot. So write it, read it, memorize it. That’s the only way.”
- Euh-heh-heh-heh. Crazy bastard.
“Is Gunsan running smoothly?”
- Yeah. It’s running fucking great without you here.
“Really? Then I can’t just sit back and watch that happen. Guess I’ll have to go over there and make a mess of things.”
- Come. Come make a mess. I’d even like to see that.
“Bullshit. Anyway, what’s up?”
- A progress report? I was going to do something like that.
“Why bother with that? Just handle it yourself.”
- Aren’t you our spiritual pillar? Me and all the boys want to lean on you. We’re grateful, too. So just accept it.
“I don’t want to... but let’s hear it first.”
- First of all, we’ve completely taken control of Gunsan, and we’ve finished sorting out the boys.
“Oh~ You did it faster than I expected. I thought it’d take some time.”
- These days, we’ve got plenty of funding, and we’re so clean about things that the guys don’t hesitate to come over to our side. As for the old men of the Geumho Faction who were doing nothing but eating up money, we recommended retirement.
“Efficient.”
- Right now, we’re expanding our territory into Jeonju. With money and people, we’re really picking up speed.
“Be careful. That’s when accidents happen. Even with car accidents, you don’t crash when you can’t drive, because you’re careful. But after you’ve been driving for a year or two? Huh? You start thinking, ‘Am I good at driving?’ and press the accelerator, and that’s when you go.”
- Got it. I’ll be careful. But listen.
“Yeah.”
- That online gambling site. The profits there seem a little strange.
“What’s wrong with it?”
- The revenue is way too high. It’s scary.
“Really?”
I’d said I’d entrusted the management to Daehun, but in my heart, I’d handed it over completely.
So I hadn’t paid it any attention.
Nam Yongu had said he’d submit the settlement report, but I told him to just report to Daehun.
But the revenue was too high?
It was true that Daehun had put in a lot of effort to promote the site.
He put up banners on all kinds of sites, ran promotions, went around to PC rooms and created shortcuts to draw in traffic.
He sent spam texts and advertised in sports streaming rooms, on social media, and across various communities.
He gave points to new members,
and promoted the fact that they could be cashed out immediately.
What Daehun wanted to say was that the site seemed to be growing too large, so he wanted me to check it once.
He felt like we needed to take some kind of measure.
.
.
.
“Boss, here is this month’s settlement.”
Department Head Nam Yongu, who had created the gambling site, came in with the settlement details.
“Mm... Is this correct?”
“Yes. It is. I checked it over several times myself.”
The net profit for this month written on the settlement report Department Head Nam brought was 7 billion won.
Given the nature of an internet gambling den, once you exclude the initial production costs,
there really isn’t much money to spend besides server costs, electricity bills, and Department Head Nam’s salary.
So even if most of the revenue could be taken as net profit, this was too much.
The site hadn’t even been open for very long.
“That’s strange. Why is the revenue increasing this much?”
“I’ve built several gambling sites before, but this is the first time I’ve seen something like this.”
“Really?”
“If I had to name a reason, I think it may be because of the high odds.”
“Why would that matter? If the odds are high and they win money, shouldn’t they leave? They need to realize their profits.”
“Isn’t not being able to do that what makes them gamblers? On top of that, because there’s hope that they can win here, it seems they can’t leave and keep lingering. Here, you can see the Dwell Time is an average of 3 hours and 40 minutes, which is extremely long compared to other sites.”
“So, to summarize, because we let them win money, they gamble until they lose it all, then even recharge, and only leave once they’ve lost everything?”
“That’s right. The problem is, since they keep winning money during that process, they can’t cut off that dopamine and just keep gambling.”
This is frustrating.
I made this site so Daehun, who was struggling because he had no money, could at least earn some pocket money.
That didn’t mean I wanted to see everyone who visited the site as suckers and rip them off.
So I told them not to do things like manipulate the odds.
If anything, I told them to raise them a little.
People with skill who could win would win, and those who would lose would lose.
That’s basically the law of nature.
Those who would win would win, realize their profits, and leave.
Those who lost would lose, wash their hands of it, and leave.
I thought, since these people would stay on the site for a while, I’d take ads for that and maintain the site moderately.
That was the picture I had in mind.
How nice is that?
Everyone is happy.
But it’s not going the way I thought.
What’s the problem?
Is it the new member points given to everyone who signs up?
Daehun told us to give points to every new member.
For example, say we went to a casino in Las Vegas.
Even if we didn’t know how to play poker, baccarat, blackjack, or roulette,
we’d at least have to pull a slot machine.
Even if we came as a joke, we’d have to pull it once.
This site is the same.
Since they came to visit the site, they can at least try a simple game.
We can’t have them come in, just look around, and leave.
The new member points are given so they can try it once without any burden.
The problem is that they win money with them.
If they win money, they should realize their profits and leave.
Why are they pulling until they lose all of that money?
Why do they keep raising the bet amount?
And if they lost money, they should get up cleanly. Why do they keep recharging?
Of course, since losing money stings, we do give them a little parting gift so they can at least have a bowl of gukbap.
Under the name of payback.
Then they should take that money and go buy some gukbap.
Why are they pulling with that again?
This is driving me crazy.
That’s why both the recharge amount and the Dwell Time are increasing.
But I don’t want to lower the odds again.
Someone will realize their profits and leave.
For now, all I can do is watch.
“Understood for now. Let me know if anything else comes up, and report to me weekly.”
“Yes, sir. And...”
“Do you have something to say?”
“The amount people are cashing out is getting larger. If the amounts get too big, there may be an investigation into the funds. I think we need to prepare for that.”
According to Department Head Nam,
though users stayed on the site for a long time,
some people did cash out and leave midway.
For example, someone starts with 200,000 won, wins up to 500,000 won, then when they have about 100,000 won left, they request a withdrawal thinking they should at least salvage that.
On top of that, he said many people requested withdrawals as a test to confirm whether the site really allowed cashouts.
It wasn’t that the amounts themselves were a problem so much as the number of users had increased exponentially.
Even if the ratio of people cashing out midway was low, at some point the frequency had become a little burdensome.
Especially because Korea’s financial system is well-developed, making it easy to get caught.
“Is there no method?”
“Usually, if there’s a real casino, it’s fairly good for laundering money there. Otherwise, you have to set up a few companies in a tax haven and keep rotating the money until it becomes clean.”
“Mm... What about coins, perhaps?”
“What do you mean by coins?”
“We create a coin, and pay out refunded points in that coin. The customers can receive coins, and we can hide the transactions.”
“Will people like that? I’m a little worried.”
“If we peg that coin 1:1 to the dollar, wouldn’t that ease their anxiety a little? Since they can cash it out at any time.”
“I think we need to think that part over a bit.”
“Department Head. Since it came to mind, would it be difficult to create a coin exchange as well? Rather than for the purpose of coin trading, I think it’d be good for money laundering. Even as a front.”
“It probably won’t be easy. Creating a coin exchange itself isn’t easy. Regulations are too strict these days.”
“Wouldn’t it be a little better if we set up the headquarters in a country that’s a tax haven? We only need to trade our own coin.”
“I’ll look into it.”
“If it’s difficult, ask Patrick to introduce you to a lawyer or something.”
“Yes, understood. I’ll call and check on the coin and the coin exchange.”
“If the technology to create it is tricky, also consider buying something that’s already been made.”
“I’ll keep that in mind as well and look into it.”
********
On the way home.
Sandro stopped me.
“Hey, boss. Going home?”
“Yeah. I should go home. I’m dead tired.”
“You still live in that house, right? The house you got when you first came to the Philippines.”
“Yeah. That’s right.”
“No, you’re the boss who owns the biggest tour company in Bohol. How can you still live in such a shabby house? How about moving?”
“Moving? No, I haven’t thought about it at all. I’m satisfied even now.”
“Good grief, boss. You shouldn’t live so selfishly and frugally.”
“Huh? What do you mean?”
“What do I mean? I mean, you’re being selfish. If you made money, you should spend it. If you don’t spend money and just hide it away, how are the people of Bohol supposed to live? All the money is being sucked toward you, but if you don’t release any of it, how are other people supposed to live? Don’t you know the trickle-down effect?”
What kind of outdated trickle-down effect is he talking about?
It’s already been proven that the trickle-down effect doesn’t work.
“So you’re saying I should spend some money?”
“Yeah. Of course, I acknowledge that even now, you’re paying employees, running tours, doing a lot of accommodations, and playing a big role. But you still eat cup noodles. You sleep in a single room. Thanks to that, the employees under you can’t eat out.”
“Why?”
“No, I mean, when the boss of the organization eats cup noodles every day, how can the employees enjoy dinner outside?”
I wondered what kind of nonsense he was spouting,
but Sandro was telling me I should enjoy life a bit too.
I’d simply lived that way because it was the most comfortable for me,
and I’d never thought of it as saving money,
but now that I thought about it, I’d never really consumed anything either.
Maybe it was because I’d always worked in places where people moved together like in the military or in security,
and had to resolve everything inside that environment, so I was used to it.
Even here, all I did was eat the meals provided on tours, eat cup noodles at home, and sleep.
Sometimes I’d drink a can of beer.
If there was a company dinner, I’d leave it to Sandro and slip out early.
It seemed Sandro felt a little sorry for the life I was living.
“Fine. I’ll move. I’ll look into houses first.”
“You don’t need to move. I emptied out the suite room at Vicente Palace. Move in there.”
“No. If I move in, the employees will all feel uncomfortable. And we should be taking guests in the rooms.”
“The suite room is almost always empty anyway. You might as well use it.”
“You can use it.”
“I have my own house. Much better than the suite room.”
“Hahaha. True.”
“Then. You’re moving into the suite room.”
“Fine.”
“Alex. I don’t know what you want, but wouldn’t it be okay to share a little with the people around you? Whether that’s sorrow or joy.”
********
Three days after leaving Zamboanga.
Dennis emailed me the armory list.
For now, it seemed he’d decided not to betray me.
But I don’t trust him.
That can change at any time.
The weapons list was splendid.
I’d expected it to be, but it was even more splendid than I thought.
No, even after I put that many guns into my inventory, that many were still left?
I don’t usually say things like this.
Thank you, Jericho. I mean it.
Next year, I’ll even set up a memorial table for you.
Dennis changed the master password to the warehouse.
Of course, it was under my instructions.
543987 was a number I was grateful for, but I didn’t like it.
And he hired the ten new employees we’d discussed.
He said they were people with excellent reputations and outstanding abilities within the organization.
I don’t know if they really had those abilities,
but I decided to have a little expectation because Dennis had chosen them.
According to Dennis,
all orders and shipments in the organization were handled by Dennis,
while everything related to money had been handled by the dead Jericho.
He said we could continue doing it that way,
and that if we proceeded like that, there would be no issue even if we were some distance apart,
then sent me guidelines.
This bastard really is logical.
To respond to their goodwill, I also gave them a Candy Tour Zamboanga branch.
Of course, I also sent them the uniforms everyone envied.
Along with that, I gave them homework.
“Still, we’re a tour company, so we need products, don’t we? Pick out places in Zamboanga with good scenery, decent spots, or places worth seeing, and report back.”
“Yes, sir.”
A few days after the Zamboanga branch opened,
Jericho’s messenger app rang.
“I’d like to purchase some weapons. Is that possible?”