The 1057th Lotto Draw: 664 Second Prize Winners Spark Interest
"Winnings Are Moderate... Not Much Regret"
At a single Lotto sales outlet, 103 second-place winners emerged simultaneously, sparking controversy over possible manipulation, while one winner's 'winning review' is drawing attention.
On the 6th, a post titled "Lotto Winning Certification" was uploaded to an online community. The author, Mr. A, stated, "I usually don't check the Lotto results immediately," adding, "Since there was controversy about the second-place winners this time, I checked the numbers right away and found out that I was one of the controversial second-place winners."
In the 1057th Lotto draw announced last week, the number of second-place winners was unusually high at 664. Among them, 103 were reported to have purchased their tickets at a lottery sales outlet on Wangsanno in Dongdaemun-gu, Seoul, leading to suspicions of manipulation. The odds of winning second place are 1 in 1.35 million, making it virtually impossible for over 100 winners to come from a single sales outlet.
According to the photos posted by Mr. A, he won three second-place games and three fourth-place games in this draw. Typically, the prize for each second-place game is known to exceed 100 million KRW. However, in this draw, the prize per game was only 6,895,880 KRW.
Because of this, he expressed, "The prize money is just so-so, so I don't feel much disappointment or anything. I just think of it as winning three third-place prizes."
Mr. A shared his reasoning for buying multiple tickets with the same numbers simultaneously. He explained, "After winning five fourth-place prizes with the same numbers a few years ago, I switched to these numbers and have been buying them every week," adding, "The number combinations have no special meaning. I keep buying with fixed numbers until I win. I usually buy three or more tickets with the same numbers every week."
He continued, "When buying manually, I carry the paper where I checked the numbers and just hand it over saying, 'Please give me three tickets of number 3.' It's not difficult," and added, "It's just greed to get more prize money. I've been buying with these numbers for about two years."
Mr. A concluded his post by saying, "Since I won second place, I plan to change the numbers and continue buying the same numbers every week," and "Although I didn't win first place, the next first-place winner could be you."
Meanwhile, after the Lotto 'second-place jackpot' became a hot topic, suspicions arose online that one person might have purchased all 103 winning tickets. Allegations of manipulation or leakage of winning numbers were also raised.
However, according to the Ministry of Economy and Finance's Lottery Commission, among the 103 winning tickets, 102 were manually selected, and 100 of these were sold on the same day and within the same time frame, suggesting purchase by the same individual. Buying 100 tickets at once is the maximum allowed quantity, and in this case, the prize money amounts to 690 million KRW.
The Lottery Commission also stated, "The multiple second-place winners in the 1057th draw are the result of preferred numbers being drawn by chance," and emphasized, "Under no circumstances is Lotto manipulation possible."
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