Unclaimed Lottery Prizes

[Anchor Lead]

In Korea, winning lottery numbers are announced every Saturday. But lottery winnings worth nearly 400 billion won have gone unclaimed over the past ten years. What happens to these unclaimed lottery prizes? Let’s find out.

[Pkg]

This man buys lottery tickets nearly every week. He wishes to win some prize money, of course. But above all, he continues to buy lottery tickets, because he can spend a week with anticipation.

[Soundbite] (Lottery Ticket Buyer(Voice modified)) : "I harbor some expectations that I might win. Once I buy lottery tickets, I feel good until the winning numbers are announced."

The annual average sales of lottery tickets amount to over three trillion won in recent three years. More than 1.8 trillion won worth of lottery tickets were sold in the first half of this year alone. Half of the sales go to the winners. However, lottery winnings worth 380 billion won have remained unclaimed by winners over the past ten years. Even 32 first-prize winners have not claimed their prize money. The unclaimed money amounts to roughly 60 billion won or 1.87 billion won per person. 60 percent of the unclaimed winning tickets were worth only five thousand won each, totaling 240 billion won. Winners can claim their prize money within a year following the drawing. Unclaimed prize money goes back to the government's lottery fund to be used for public projects. Nearly 600 billion won from the lottery fund was used for public projects in four sectors in the first half of this year alone, including over 200 billion won spent to provide housing for low-income earners.