25% of lottery ticket buyers in S.Korea play every week

One in four buyers of lottery tickets in South Korea over the past year tried their luck every week.

The Ministry of Strategy and Finance on Tuesday in a lottery awareness survey said 56.5% of adults over age 19 purchased a lottery ticket over the past year. Given the country's adult population of 43 million, an estimated 24 million people played the lottery over that period, it said.

The study also found that nearly a fourth or 24.4% of ticket purchasers played every week, second to the 26.2% who played once a month and ahead of the 15.7% who played every two weeks and 8.9% who played every three months.

In addition, 52.8% of players had an average ticket purchase of over 5,000 won ($4) and under 10,000 won, 38.9% less than 5,000 won and 8.2% over 10,000 won.

By occupation, wage earners accounted for 50% of lottery players followed by the self-employed with 20.2% and housewives 18.9%.

Last year, lottery ticket sales reached 6.4 trillion won, up 7.6% from 5.9 trillion won in 2021 as the annual figure broke 6 trillion won for the first time. Such sales saw gradual growth from 4.2 trillion won in 2017 to 4.4 trillion won in 2018 and 4.8 trillion won in 2019 but after the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic, they shot up to 5.4 trillion won in 2020 and set record highs over the next two years.

Write to Eu-Jin Jeong at justjin@hankyung.com