"Where to Rely on for Life Turnaround in a Recession"… Lotto Sales Hit Another Record High

The Lotto lottery has once again broken its all-time highest sales record.

원본보기 아이콘

On the 30th, the Ministry of Economy and Finance and the lottery operator Donghaeng Lottery announced that last year's Lotto lottery sales amounted to 5.9562 trillion won, marking an all-time high. If the current trend continues, sales this year are estimated to exceed 6 trillion won.

The Lotto lottery caused a so-called "craze" when it was launched, with sales reaching 3.8 trillion won the following year in 2003. Amid concerns over gambling addiction, the government reduced the number of times prize money could be rolled over, and in 2004, the price per game was lowered from 2,000 won to 1,000 won. As a result, annual sales dropped to the 2 trillion won range.

However, sales gradually increased. After reaching 3.0411 trillion won in 2014, it returned to the 3 trillion won range and set new records every year thereafter. In 2019, sales surpassed 4 trillion won for the first time with 4.3082 trillion won, and in 2021, it rose to the 5 trillion won range with 5.1148 trillion won.

The year-over-year sales growth rates were ▲9.3% in 2020 ▲8.6% in 2021 ▲7.9% in 2022 ▲2.4% in 2023, showing a downward trend before rebounding to 5.4% last year.

There were 763 first-prize winners last year, with prize amounts varying by more than eight times between draws. The draw with the largest prize was the 1147th draw on November 23, where eight winners each received about 3.323 billion won. In contrast, the 1128th draw on July 13 had as many as 63 first-prize winners, with each winner receiving about 420 million won. At that time, there was talk that it was difficult to achieve a "life turnaround" with the Lotto.

The second prize, awarded for matching five numbers plus the bonus number, also showed large disparities per draw. In the 1138th draw on September 21, each of the 50 second-prize winners received 88.79 million won, but in the 1150th draw on December 14, the second prize was only 19.69 million won for 226 winners.

The draw with the highest number of Lotto buyers was the 1106th draw on February 10, with sales of 126.6 billion won in one week. This equates to 126.6 million games sold. Conversely, the 1131st draw on August 3 recorded the lowest sales for a week, with 109.1 billion won sold.

© The Asia Business Daily(www.asiae.co.kr). All rights reserved.