Unclaimed Lotto Winnings Total 58.1 Billion Won: What Happens If Left Unclaimed for a Year?

As unclaimed lottery winnings reached 58.1 billion won last year, a new system will be introduced to automatically pay out unclaimed prizes for physical lottery tickets.

The Lottery Commission under the Ministry of Economy and Finance announced today (the 11th) that it held a plenary meeting via written resolution and voted on amendments including the Guidelines on the Issuance, Management, and Sale of Lotteries.

Starting from the 18th, if paper lottery tickets purchased at retail stores are registered on the Payco app, users will receive regular notifications on whether they have won. For registered tickets, any unclaimed winnings will be automatically deposited into the registered account on the final payout deadline.

Currently, the right to claim lottery winnings expires if not exercised within one year from the start of the payout period.

While lottery tickets purchased online allow for buyer identification—enabling automatic prize payouts and winning notifications—physical tickets bought at retail stores make it difficult to identify buyers. This has often led to cases where winners missed the claim deadline without knowing they won or by simply forgetting to collect their prizes.

In fact, unclaimed lottery winnings rose from 43 billion won in 2021 to 58.1 billion won last year.

Most of these unclaimed winnings came from relatively small prizes, specifically 50,000 won for 4th place and 5,000 won for 5th place. The Lottery Commission expects the new system to reduce instances where people miss the claim deadline due to failing to check or delaying the collection of small prizes.

However, the commission advised that even when tickets are registered electronically, claims processed via the physical ticket take precedence. Therefore, players must carefully keep their physical tickets without losing them until the day before the payout deadline.

Reported by Kim Taewon | Video by Lee Eui-seon | Graphics by Lee Jung-joo | Produced by SBS Digital News
※ Please note: This article was translated by AI and may contain errors.