Implicit and explicit attitudes toward two casino cities, Las Vegas, USA, and Jeongseon, Korea, were compared in this study. Seventy‐two Koreans willing to visit both cities participated in the study. Implicit attitudes gaged by the Implicit Association Test were more favorable to Las Vegas than to Jeongseon. This was in accord with explicit attitudes. That is, participants had positive attitudes to Las Vegas and negative attitudes to Jeongseon at the explicit level. After watching 15 min of film showing negative aspects of the casino in Jeongseon, implicit attitudes did not change; however, explicit attitudes to both cities became negative. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.