Korea to Auto-Pay Unclaimed Paper Lottery Prizes From the 18th

South Korea is introducing a service that automatically pays out prizes from unclaimed paper lottery tickets. Buyers who register their tickets with a mobile payment app will receive regular alerts on whether they have won and can collect their winnings, a step expected to help protect the rights of small-prize winners.

The Lottery Commission under the Ministry of Economy and Finance approved the measure at a plenary meeting on the 11th, adopting a revision to its guidelines on lottery issuance, management and sales.

The commission has built a system to automatically pay out, via mobile, prizes from paper lottery tickets bought at retail outlets, and will launch it in full on the 18th. Once a ticket is registered with Payco, a mobile payment app, buyers are notified regularly of whether they have won, and any prize not claimed by the deadline is automatically deposited on the day the deadline expires. Until the deadline, however, payment based on the physical ticket takes priority, so buyers should take care not to lose their paper tickets.

Until now, physical lottery tickets, unlike those bought online, allowed no way to verify a buyer’s identity. As a result, when winners forgot they had won or lost their tickets, prizes were returned to the lottery fund once the one-year claim period passed. As of 2025, unclaimed lottery prizes reached 58.1 billion won ($42 million), most of them small wins such as fourth-tier prizes of 50,000 won and fifth-tier prizes of 5,000 won. A ministry official said the new measure is expected to raise trust in the lottery by providing a means to deliver even small sums to the public as their rightful due.

The commission also introduced measures to improve convenience for buyers. Real-time business information for the roughly 9,500 lottery retailers nationwide will be provided to Naver Map and Kakao Map. To boost retailers’ sales, the commission will pilot vouchers for pension-type lottery tickets worth 5,000 won or less for use as corporate promotional gifts.

The commission is also pursuing a plan to use retail outlets as promotional hubs to raise awareness of the lottery fund. Through banners, lottery ticket envelopes and QR code displays, it plans to actively publicize lottery fund projects in each area.

The commission is also holding a “Lottery Fund Drawing Contest” through September 11 on the theme of how the lottery fund has changed local neighborhoods. Any South Korean national aged 19 or older may take part by submitting entries through the commission’s website and other channels.

Cho Yong-beom, vice minister at the ministry, said the overhaul will protect the rights of lottery buyers and help improve sales at retail outlets, which are staffed largely by people from vulnerable groups. The vice minister added that the ministry will continue to value the public’s views and pursue ongoing innovation.