By Byun Duk-kun
Staff Reporter

Lotto 6/45 is breaking its sales record by billions of won day after day while donations to the Salvation Army increased only by 100 million won ($83,000) last year.

The daily sales record of Lotto was again topped with 43.7 billion won ($36.5 million) on Thursday after only one day following Wednesday’s record of little more than 30 billion won, according to Kookmin bank officials who are operating the lottery.

However, the total amount of donations to the Salvation Army came to a mere 2.3 billion won ($1.9 million) last year, Salvation Army spokesman Ahn Kun-shik said.

``People are, of course, self-interested. However, over 40 billion won on one day compared to 2.3 billion won for the entire year does tell us something,’’ Ahn said.

With more than 70 billion won ($58.4 million) expected for the top prize pool of this week’s Lotto draw, more than six out of every 10 people turned out to test their luck, according to a survey.

More than 60 percent of the 958 respondents said they have either already bought tickets or will do so for this Saturday’s Lotto 6/45 draw, according to the survey conducted by Duo, a matchmaking company based in Seoul.

``However, as only 31 percent of respondents answered they had bought lottery tickets before, at least 30 percent of those surveyed appeared to have been encouraged to take a chance at this week’s 50 billion won top prize money,’’ marriage consulting company Duo’s spokesman Lee Sang-ho said.

An official at Kookmin bank revealed yesterday that this week’s top prize pool will at least go over 70 billion won ($41.7 million) as sales for this week alone had already topped 1,302 billion won (over $108 million) by Thursday, making the top prize pool some 30 billion won in addition to 25.8 billion won ($21.5 million) first prize money that was carried forward to this week from the last three weeks.

``We decided not to reveal the amount of top prize money because they’ll say we are encouraging people to speculate,’’ the official said during a telephone interview with The Korea Times yesterday.

While more people appear to have been encouraged by this week’s bigger-than-ever top prize money, people also appeared to be putting more of their money at stake as it is thought to be their last chance at a half of a trillion won (one trillion won equals about $83 million) due to the lottery mediation committee limiting the number of prize-carrying weeks to two from the current five weeks after this Saturday’s draw.

``I’m planning on buying 200,000 won ($167) worth of tickets this week because this may be my last chance,’’ 28-year old Jung Sung-chul who works for a local company in Seoul said.


Although Jung has already figured out the amount of interest he would earn from 50 billion won each day, he said he is not sure what he would do if he wins the lottery.


``What am I going to do with 200,000 won? I’m not going to become a millionaire depositing that money for 10, 20 or even 30 years, but 50 billion will sure make me one. I will get five million won ($4,200) everyday in bank interest, but I guess I can still work for fun because there will be nothing else to do,’’ he said.

Another surveyed conducted by Piery, another matchmaking company in Seoul, found 58 percent of respondents said they would quit working once they won a lottery of more than 810 million won ($675,000) of top prize money, Piery spokesman Jang Sung-kun said.

Sold at 2,000 won a game, more than 43 million Lotto games have been played this week alone while the odds of getting all six correct numbers to win the top prize stands at about one to eight million, according to the bank.

``The law of probability indicates that there should’ve been at least five top prize winners for last week’s draw because the odds are only one to eight million while more than 40 million games were played,’’ Han Hee-sung, Kookmin bank spokesman, told The Korea Times during an earlier interview.

``However, there was no one who beat the one to eight million odds last week because there were more than just a few games with same wrong numbers since everyone plays their own games,’’ he added.

While more than 72 percent of 958 respondents in the survey conducted by Duo said Lotto was spreading nationwide speculation, South Koreans continue to spin their wheel of fortune which costs billions of won.

Although foreign residents in Korea are allowed to purchase Lotto tickets, KOLOTTO offers an exclusive lottery for foreign residents and travelers. For more information and purchase, visit their Web site, www.kolotto.com.

benjamine@koreatimes.co.kr