59 Billion Won with No Owner... Will the Lotto 1st Prize Money Go to the Treasury?

Two Winners from Last May Still Missing
One-Year Expiry from Payment Start Date for Prize Money
If Unclaimed, Funds Revert to Lottery Fund

Approximately 5.9 billion KRW in first-place Lotto prize money, unclaimed for a year, is expected to soon revert to the national treasury.

According to Donghaeng Lottery on the 13th, the first-place winners of the 1016th Lotto draw held on May 21 last year and the 1017th draw held on May 28 of the same month have yet to claim their prize money.

The winning numbers for the two winners who purchased their tickets in Seoul are 15, 26, 28, 34, 41, 42 and 12, 18, 22, 23, 30, 34 respectively, with prize amounts of 2,260,667,071 KRW and 3,517,684,822 KRW.

The expiration period for claiming Lotto prize money is one year from the payment start date. If they do not claim their prizes by May 22 and May 29 respectively, the entire prize money will be transferred to the Lottery Fund. According to the Lottery Fund Act, the funds are used for welfare projects for marginalized groups, scholarship programs for low-income families, cultural heritage protection projects, and more.

Citizens are lined up to buy lottery tickets in front of a lottery sales store in Nowon-gu, Seoul. [Image source=Yonhap News]

The second-place prize money for the 1017th draw is also still unclaimed. The winner, who also purchased the ticket in Seoul, has a prize amount totaling 58,628,081 KRW.

Among the unclaimed second-place winners, some have less than three days left before the payment expiration date as of today. These include two second-place winners from the 1015th draw held on May 14 last year. The second-place prize for that draw is 39,883,734 KRW, and the payment deadline is the 15th of this month. Excluding the weekend, there is only one day left to claim the prize.

Donghaeng Lottery, the Lotto operator, publicly discloses on its website the status of large unclaimed prize money with less than two months remaining before expiration.

Meanwhile, one of the first-place winners of the 1012th Lotto draw held on April 23 last year claimed their prize money just before the payment deadline, with less than a week remaining.

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