Korean Worker in Vietnam Wins Record 5.78 Billion Won Lottery Jackpot

A South Korean man working in Vietnam has won first prize in Vietnam’s state-run lottery.

According to Vietnamese media outlet VnExpress on the 21st, Vietlott, the operator entrusted with Vietnam’s state lottery, recently paid a first prize of 102.8 billion dong (approximately 5.788 billion won) from the “Power 6/55” lottery to a Korean identified as K, who works at a foreign-invested company in Bac Ninh province in northern Vietnam. It is the largest amount ever received by a foreigner in the history of Vietnam’s lottery.

K purchased the numbers “09, 17, 20, 33, 41, 42” at a lottery retail store located on Nguyen Dang Dao Street in Bac Ninh province in northern Vietnam and won first prize in the drawing on July 11. According to Vietlott, the odds of winning first prize in Power 6/55 are about one in 28.9 million.

He first encountered computerized lottery in Vietnam about five years ago, and because it was similar to Korea’s lottery purchasing method, he had regularly bought lottery tickets twice a week, about 20 to 30 tickets each time. When the accumulated prize money grew large, he sometimes bought up to 50 tickets at once.

“I was so shocked that at first I couldn’t believe it,” K said. “I checked the lottery numbers over and over again until I was certain I was the first-prize jackpot winner.”

K received more than 92.5 billion dong (about 5.2 billion won) after deducting 10.28 billion dong in personal income tax. He is known to have shared his joy by donating about 1.5 billion dong (about 84 million won) through a social contribution fund.

According to Vietlott, this is the fourth time a foreigner has won first prize in the Mega 6/45 or Power 6/55 lottery. Previously, a total of three foreigners had won first prize, including two Koreans and one Chinese national. The previous highest prize was 32.6 billion dong in 2025 (1.8 billion won at the current exchange rate), when a Korean living in Ho Chi Minh City won first prize, drawing considerable attention both at home and abroad at the time.

Power 6/55, along with Mega 6/45, is one of Vietlott’s flagship businesses and is a Vietnamese version of the lottery in which players match 6 out of 55 numbers. The odds of winning first prize are one in 28,299,675, about 3.6 times lower than the odds of winning first prize in Korea’s Donghaeng Lottery. Vietlott is a state-run enterprise under Vietnam’s Ministry of Finance and currently operates more than 6,100 retail outlets across 34 provinces and cities.