Suspected Manipulation... 'Lotto Live Draw' with 150 Participants
Lotto Commission and Donghaeng Lotto Actively Address 'Manipulation Controversy'
The first prize amount for the 1071st Lotto draw, held on the 10th through a 'public drawing' method, was set at 5,183,980,000 KRW. This is the first time in 11 months since July last year that the Lotto first prize has exceeded 5 billion KRW.
On this day, the Lotto operator Donghaeng Lottery announced that the winning numbers for the first prize were ‘1, 2, 11, 21, 30, 35’. The second prize bonus number was ‘39’.
There were 5 first prize winners who matched all six winning numbers, each receiving 5,183,980,000 KRW. All of their purchases were made through automatic selection. This is the first time this year that the first prize has exceeded 5 billion KRW.
The most recent record of a first prize exceeding approximately 5.1 billion KRW was on July 23 last year, when the prize was 6,118,850,000 KRW, and there were a total of 4 first prize winners at that time.
Since 2020, there have been a total of 7 occasions where the first prize exceeded 5 billion KRW, including once in 2020 (October 24), twice in 2021 (June 12 and November 13), and three times last year (April 30, June 4, and July 23).
The highest Lotto first prize amount this year before this was 4,080,360,000 KRW, drawn on February 4.
There were 83 second prize winners who matched five numbers plus the bonus number, each receiving 52,050,000 KRW, and 2,891 third prize winners who matched five numbers, each receiving 1,490,000 KRW.
There were 143,234 fourth prize winners who matched four numbers (fixed prize of 50,000 KRW), and 2,391,950 fifth prize winners who matched three numbers (fixed prize of 5,000 KRW).
The deadline for claiming prizes is one year from the start date of payment (if it falls on a holiday, the next business day).
There were a total of 5 sales locations that produced first prize winners on this day: ▲ Comprehensive kiosk (Dongdaemun-gu, Seoul) ▲ Donbyerak Hadan branch (Saha-gu, Busan) ▲ Migeum Heritz branch (Seongnam-si, Gyeonggi) ▲ Daebak Myeongdang (Yangju-si, Gyeonggi) ▲ D Mart Tobacco (Sokcho-si, Gangwon). There were no manual selections.
Meanwhile, to dispel recent suspicions of Lotto manipulation, Donghaeng Lottery allowed spectators to attend the drawing site starting from this round. This is the first time since the Lotto was issued that a large number of people were invited to publicly observe the Lotto drawing.
Present at the event were Choi Sang-dae, the 2nd Vice Minister of the Ministry of Economy and Finance, and actress Kim So-yeon, the lottery ambassador.
Previously, about 15 members of the public attended the weekly Lotto drawing broadcasts. On this day’s public broadcast, over 150 people attended, more than ten times the usual number.
At a press conference held before the live Lotto broadcast, Hong Deok-gi, CEO of Donghaeng Lottery, emphasized regarding the lottery system, "Lotto winning numbers are always determined randomly through a live broadcast drawing machine, and the prize amount varies depending on sales volume and the number of winners."
Regarding the phenomenon of dozens of first prize winners emerging, he explained, "Initially, about 14% of selections were automatic, but now 70% are automatic. Manual selections tend to show patterns, but the winner of the 400 billion KRW prize in the 19th draw was an automatic selection, and automatic selections have increased."
Addressing suspicions that first prize winners come too frequently from certain regions, he said, "Winners appear in proportion to sales. The statistics confirm that Seoul and Gyeonggi, where sales are highest nationwide, have the most winners, and Sejong, where sales are lowest, has the fewest winners. The structure is such that more sales lead to more winners."
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