This undated file photo shows people queuing in front of a sales outlet in Seoul to buy Lotto tickets. (Yonhap)
SEOUL, Dec. 6 (Korea Bizwire) — South Korea’s Lotto, the most popular offline lottery ticket in the country, celebrated its 20th year of sales, which surpassed 5 trillion won (US$3.78 billion) last year, data showed Monday.
A total of 7,803 people won first place in the lottery from Dec. 7, 2002, to Nov. 26 of this year, according to the data from the finance ministry and the Korea Lottery Commission.
The winners have received a total of 15.9 trillion won, which is equivalent to close to 2 billion won each. For each lot drawing, an average of 7.5 people won the lottery.
The largest sum of prize money was given out on April 12, 2003. Only one person won first prize, which came to a sum of 40.7 billion won.
The smallest sum of prize money was given out on May 18, 2013. A whopping 30 people won first prize, with each taking home 406 million won.
On an annual basis, lottery ticket sales amounted to around 4 trillion won in the early 2000s.
After the popularity of lotteries began to dwindle, however, sales dropped to 2 trillion won in the early 2010s.
Sales surpassed the 3 trillion won hurdle in 2013, before jumping to 5 trillion won last year. This year, lottery ticket sales amounted to 3.1 trillion won as of late July.
Ashley Song (ashley@koreabizwire.com)
