‘Baeksuk Restaurant Poker’ Truth Showdown: Lee Yong-cheol says “I didn’t gamble,” while Dong-gyu Yu says “Checks changed hands too”

[Financial News] Lee Yong-cheol, nominee for justice minister, is locked in a fierce battle over the truth with Dong-gyu Yu, former planning director of the Seongnam Urban Development Corporation, over the so-called “baeksuk restaurant poker” allegations that emerged ahead of Lee’s confirmation hearing. Lee has denied gambling for large stakes and said he was being unfairly accused, but Yu has refused to back down, saying they played “at least three times” and disclosing specific details.
The controversy began when Yu recently claimed on a YouTube channel, “I played poker with nominee Lee Yong-cheol at a restaurant serving baeksuk chicken soup in Gogi-ri Valley, Yongin, Gyeonggi Province, in the past, and the stakes added up to 2 million won.”
Lee strongly rejected the claim when he spoke with reporters on his way to work on the morning of the 9th, saying, “Yu has made very malicious attacks against me.” He added, “I have never gambled for large sums beyond casual games with family or friends,” and dismissed the claim, saying, “I can’t help asking whether it makes any sense to remember an event from decades ago as if it happened yesterday, down to the specific restaurant and stakes of several million won.” His point was that Yu’s claims were not credible.

Yu immediately issued a fresh rebuttal that same day. “When Lee was president of the Seongnam Industry Promotion Agency, he contacted me, and the four of us—including two other agency executives—played poker three or four times at a baeksuk restaurant,” Yu said. “We started with 1,000-won bills, then 50,000-won notes piled up, and even checks came into play. There should be a record of the payment on the company’s corporate card at the time,” he said, giving specific details.
Addressing Lee’s claim of “malicious slander,” Yu challenged him: “Is it malicious just because he can’t remember? Is it malicious to say he didn’t play when he did, or is the person saying he did play the malicious one?” He also said he would call as witnesses the secretary and drivers who had accompanied him if he were sued.
The two men’s war of words expanded beyond the gambling allegations to their relationship with President Lee Jae Myung.
After Yu had described Lee as “someone who would carry out President Lee Jae Myung’s orders without hesitation, no matter what,” Lee retorted, “Give me even one specific example.”
Yu responded by bringing up how he had joined the Seongnam Facilities Management Corporation despite not meeting the eligibility requirements, under the criterion “other persons recognized by the mayor.” “The fact that nominee Lee hired me for Lee Jae Myung is the very proof,” he said. He went on to say pointedly, “If Lee becomes minister, he will prove for himself that he’ll stop at nothing by securing the withdrawal of the prosecution against the president.”
The latest dispute is expected to make the past ties of the so-called “Seongnam circle”—including nominee Lee, Kim Hyun-ji, director of the First Annex Office at the Office of the President of the Republic of Korea, and Jung Jin-sang, former head of the Democratic Party’s Office of Political Coordination—a key issue in the upcoming vetting process. They all served on the transition committee for Seongnam’s fifth popularly elected mayor in 2010. Yu has sought to emphasize the closeness of their ties, saying, “At the request of Jung Jin-sang, the former director, I had a meal with nominee Lee (then head of the agency) at the time.”


[email protected] Park Ji-hyun Reporter