Unclaimed lottery prizes top 138 billion won

Lotto winners have failed to claim a total of 138.3 billion won ($125.8 million) in prize money from 2013 to 2015, according to the lottery committee of the finance ministry, Tuesday. / Yonhap

By Hong Dam-young

Unclaimed lottery prizes in the billions are mounting in Korea.

Winners failed to collect 138.3 billion won ($125.8 million) in prize money from Lotto, the most popular offline lottery ticket, between 2013 and 2015, according to the lottery committee of the finance ministry, Tuesday.

The right to claim Lotto prizes expires after a year and unclaimed winnings go into a state fund, the ministry said.

Most of the unclaimed winnings are from fifth prize, which is 5000 won, accounting for 63.9 percent of the total.

Among 18 million winners who did not claim their cash, 13 were top prize winners. Their winnings stood at 21.8 billion won over the period.

For the first six months of this year, 2.97 million people have failed to claim a combined 26.4 billion won, the ministry said. Three of them were top prize winners.

Unclaimed winnings go into the lottery fund to be used to support low-income groups, a ministry official said.

The ministry also will increase promotion to encourage people to check if they are winners.