Lottery purchased by employee mistake wins 1st and 2nd prize... 2.1 billion won jackpot

Attempted to Buy Individually in Gimhae, Gyeongnam but Bought Set
Won 1st and 2nd Prize Simultaneously... "Will Repay Loan"

A lottery buyer who intended to purchase single tickets of the pension lottery ended up buying a set due to a lottery retailer's mistake and won both the first and second prizes, receiving 2.1 billion KRW.

On the 11th, the Donghang Lottery website revealed the story of Mr. A, the first prize winner of the 215th round of the pension lottery held last month on the 13th. Mr. A became the lucky winner who simultaneously won the first and second prizes after purchasing a set of Pension Lottery 720+ at a lottery retailer in Gimhae-si, Gyeongnam. Originally, he planned to buy several single tickets of the pension lottery, but due to the retailer's mistake, he ended up purchasing two sets.

Several lottery entry slips are placed in a stand in Jongno-gu, Seoul. Photo by Younghan Heo younghan@

Mr. A said, "I usually buy various lotteries for fun, and for the pension lottery, I buy several single tickets rather than sets." However, on the day he bought the winning tickets, he purchased a set instead of single tickets as usual. He recalled the situation, saying, "The staff said they would exchange the wrong tickets, but there were many customers in line and the staff seemed busy, so I just bought the set." He added, "With a nervous heart, I checked each digit, and six digits matched in the first group," and shared his feelings about winning the first prize: "Although I won first prize, I felt more dazed and numb than happy." Mr. A also mentioned, "I plan to use the prize money to pay off loans and supplement living expenses."

The Pension Lottery 720+ awards the first prize if all seven digits match, and the second prize if six digits match. Tickets can be purchased in sets of five, where all but one digit among the seven are the same. Therefore, if one ticket wins the first prize, the other four tickets win the second prize. The first prize pays 7 million KRW monthly for 20 years, and the second prize pays 1 million KRW monthly for 10 years in an annuity format. Thus, winning both first and second prizes simultaneously results in a total payout of 2.16 billion KRW.

Meanwhile, in the first quarter, one in ten households purchased lottery tickets, marking the highest proportion of lottery buyers in the past five years.

According to an analysis of the May microdata from the Statistics Korea Household Trends Survey, 2,212,000 households (10.1% of the 21,834,000 surveyed households) purchased lotteries such as Lotto, Pension Lottery, horse racing, and cycle racing in the first quarter. On average, lottery-buying households spent 7,321 KRW per month on lottery tickets. The proportion of lottery-buying households in the first quarter was 9.3% in 2020 and 8.8% in 2022, maintaining a range of 8-9%.

Looking at lottery-buying households by income quintile, the highest number was in the third quintile (top 40-60% income group) with 506,000 households (22.9%). This was followed by the fourth quintile (22.8%), fifth quintile (22.4%), second quintile (17.3%), and first quintile (14.6%). In other words, lottery purchases were most common among middle-income, high-income, and low-income groups, in that order.

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