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By Lee Kyung-min
Kim Sun-jin, 20, has been buying a lottery ticket each month, ever since she was let go from her part-time job at an eatery in Seoul in 2020 when the COVID-19 pandemic was tanking the country's job market.
"I buy it about once a month, not because I believe I will win, but because I hope I do," she said. "I think others who buy them feel the same. I feel less worried about my future at the thought of winning billions of won ― however brief that feeling may be."
She thought her minimum wage job was a stable source of income, but she was wrong.
"It was mostly about serving food and beer. The work was not that demanding and the owner of the eatery sometimes paid me extra, when sales were good. But people not gathering at night after work led to a sudden sales decline and I was let go as a result."
Similarly, Lee Hee-chan, a man in his 40s who runs an indoor facility where Latin dance classes are held, says he understands why people buy lottery tickets.
"It would make all my problems go away. I wouldn't need to pay monthly rent for the facility, not to mention the interest on my mortgage. I wouldn't have to worry every night how to make ends meet."
He thought the gathering ban would soon be lifted, and people would come back to learn how to dance. "But the social distancing rules kept on tightening and a new variant emerged," he said.
Kim and Lee are among the many who contributed to last year's annual lottery ticket sales raking in close to 6 trillion won ($5 billion), indicating an increasing number of people are turning to one-off, windfall gains amid the prolonged economic slowdown brought on by the pandemic.
Data from the Ministry of Economy and Finance showed an all-time high of over 5.97 trillion won, up 10.3 percent from 5.41 trillion won in 2020.
It was the second-straight year of double-digit growth after rising 13 percent in 2020.
By type, online lottery tickets accounted for about 5.13 trillion won, up 8.4 percent from a year earlier, followed by printed ones and the pension lottery.
Sales of the pension lottery showed the sharpest year-on-year increase of 29.2 percent, after the monthly payout to be paid over the course of 20 years was raised to 7 million won from 5 million won.
Seoul National University economist Lee In-ho said the figures illustrate the sad reality of the pandemic-hit economy. "The more economic strain people feel, the more inclined they are to dream about what they know is hard to come by."
About two-thirds of sales proceeds are used to provide financial assistance for low-income groups, with housing and scholarships among other social safety net programs, while the remaining one-third is claimed by the issuer of each respective lottery ticket.
Last year, around 1.4 trillion won was poured into income support for underprivileged groups. Over 550.4 billion won was used for public housing programs and 164.2 billion won for cultural experiences.
