As Casinos and Horse Racing Closed Due to COVID-19... Last Year's Lottery Sales Reach a Record High of 6 Trillion Won

A delivery driver is purchasing a Lotto ticket at a lottery sales store. Photo by Moon Ho-nam munonam@

[Sejong=Asia Economy Reporter Son Seonhee] Last year, lottery sales reached 6 trillion won, marking the largest scale ever in terms of sales amount. As various gambling industries such as casinos and horse racing reduced operations following the COVID-19 pandemic, lottery sales increased relatively like a balloon effect.

According to the Ministry of Economy and Finance on the 18th, the annual lottery sales last year amounted to 5.9755 trillion won, an increase of 10.3% (560.3 billion won) compared to the previous year. Among the lottery proceeds, 2.4291 trillion won was allocated to the lottery fund.

Online lottery sales reached 5.1371 trillion won, up 8.4% from a year earlier; printed lottery sales increased by 19.8% to 442 billion won; pension lottery sales rose 29.2% to 291.1 billion won; and electronic lottery sales grew 25.6% to 105.3 billion won. The pension lottery sales significantly increased after expanding the prize amounts and number of winners in April 2020.

Looking at the lottery sales trend over the past five years, sales gradually increased from 4.2 trillion won in 2017 to 4.4 trillion won in 2018, and 4.8 trillion won in 2019, then sharply rose from 5.4 trillion won in 2020 when the COVID-19 pandemic began.

The government analyzed this as a substitution effect due to the reduction of offline gambling industries such as casinos, horse racing, and bicycle racing after the COVID-19 outbreak. In fact, there are cases overseas where lottery sales increased after the COVID-19 pandemic. According to research conducted by Chungbuk National University, lotteries are considered to have a substitutive relationship in sales with casinos, horse racing, bicycle racing, and motorboat racing.

Additionally, lotteries are the easiest form of donation. When purchasing one 1,000 won lottery ticket, about 410 won is allocated to public interest projects.

Most of the proceeds from lottery sales are used to support vulnerable groups, including housing stability for low-income families and scholarship programs. Last year, a total of 2.6311 trillion won was supported, including lottery sales revenue and surplus funds.