"Top Prize of 40.7 Billion Won, 7,281 Winners in Total"…Lotto Celebrates 1000th Draw

Cumulative Sales of 62.6 Trillion Won... Total Prize Money of 31.3 Trillion Won

Citizens are lined up in front of a lottery ticket store known as a lucky spot for Lotto in Nowon-gu, Seoul, waiting their turn to purchase lottery tickets.
Photo by Yonhap News

[Asia Economy Reporter Na Ye-eun] Korea's representative lottery, 'Lotto,' marked its 1000th draw on the 29th of last month. Over 20 years, more than seven people each week have won an average of 2 billion KRW in luck.

According to the Ministry of Economy and Finance's Lottery Commission and the lottery operator Donghaeng Lottery on the 3rd, the cumulative sales amount from the 1st Lotto draw (held on December 7, 2002) to the 1000th draw (held on January 29, 2022) reached 62.567083608 trillion KRW.

Half of this amount, 31.283541804 trillion KRW, was paid out as prize money to a total of 7,281 winners. On average, 7.3 lucky winners emerged each week. The average first prize amount was 2.042 billion KRW.

Based on this, for the first prize of 2.042 billion KRW, a tax rate of 22% is applied up to 300 million KRW, resulting in a tax of 66 million KRW. For the remaining 1.742 billion KRW exceeding 300 million KRW, a tax rate of 33% is applied, resulting in a tax of 574.86 million KRW. The total combined tax amounts to 640.86 million KRW.

In other words, the actual amount received by a first prize Lotto winner is just over 1.4 billion KRW (1.40114 billion KRW). For the second prize, the cumulative number of winners is 43,405, with an average of 43.4 winners each week receiving 57.07 million KRW. The third prize winners number 1,658 weekly, each receiving 1.49 million KRW.

Meanwhile, the 1000th Lotto draw recorded sales of 118.628811 billion KRW, a 15.6% increase compared to the previous 99th draw (102.581351 billion KRW).

During the course of 1000 Lotto draws, the highest prize money was in the 19th draw, amounting to 40.72296 billion KRW. At that time, no first prize winner emerged in the 18th draw, causing the prize money to roll over and significantly increase.

The popularity of Lotto has soared amid the COVID-19 pandemic. Last year, Lotto sales increased by 8.4% from the previous year, surpassing 5 trillion KRW (5.1371 trillion KRW) for the first time. This is the highest amount since its inception in 2002.

In 2003, sales reached 3.8242 trillion KRW, dropped to 2.2677 trillion KRW in 2007, and gradually recovered. Last year, sales exceeded 4 trillion KRW (4.3181 trillion KRW) for the first time.

The rapid increase in Lotto sales is attributed to the start of internet sales and the prolonged economic downturn caused by COVID-19. It is interpreted that many people aiming for a life turnaround have increased due to the economic recession caused by COVID-19, rising real estate prices, and the stock investment boom.

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.