664 Lotto runners-up defended by Korea Lottery Commission

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664 Lotto runners-up defended by Korea Lottery Commission

People purchase lottery tickets at a lottery store in Dongdaemun District, eastern Seoul, on Tuesday. [NEWS1]

People purchase lottery tickets at a lottery store in Dongdaemun District, eastern Seoul, on Tuesday. [NEWS1]

 
The lottery agency insists that having 664 runners-up in a single Lotto draw — with more than 100 of the tickets sold at one convenience store — cannot be the result of manipulation.  
 
“The online lottery draw is broadcast live nationwide,” the Korea Lottery Commission, which is under the Ministry of Economy and Finance, said in a statement.
 
It says that the size and the weight of the lottery balls are inspected by the police and civilian observers right before the livestream, which occurs every Saturday night.  
 
There is zero possibility of manipulation, it added.    
 
Lotto is a lottery game involving the selection of six numbers between 1 to 45. Runner-ups are those that successfully pick five of the six numbers plus one bonus number correctly. The 1057th Lotto draw on Saturday had 664 runner-ups.
 
Of the 664 runner-up tickets last week, 103 were found to have been sold from a supermarket in Dongdaemun District, eastern Seoul, with the prize money totaling to 710 million won ($546,000).
 
“The lottery drawing machine and lottery balls are sealed under police presence and are opened at the studio on the day of the draw also under a police witness,” said the lottery agency. It added that it cannot even “approach” the sealed container unauthorized.  
 
Once the seal is opened, a random audience member gets to pick one out of five lottery ball sets to use for that week’s draw.  
 
The manipulation is systematically impossible because Lotto purchases for the week stop at 8 p.m. sharp, according to the commission.
 
It further argues that messing with the draw is impossible in the real world because the culprit would have to simultaneously access four systems that operate in separate servers, fabricate the data and print counterfeits from the disabled lottery printers immediately after the draw is broadcast.
 
The Korea Lottery Commission said the above-average number of runner-ups this week was a result of pure coincidence.
 
“Of the 103 runner-up tickets sold from a supermarket in Dongdaemun District, 102 had their numbers picked manually and 100 of those were issued at the same hour and day,” the commission said, so 100 may have been purchased by a single person.
 
The 1019th draw on June 11, 2022 had 50 grand prize winners.
 
A person who claims to have won three of the 664 runner-up prizes posted a photo of the three tickets on an online community Bobaedream on Tuesday. His prize money was about 6.9 million won.
 
 
A post online on Monday claims to have won three runner-up tickets. [SCREEN CAPTURE]

A post online on Monday claims to have won three runner-up tickets. [SCREEN CAPTURE]

 

BY HAN JEE-HYE [sohn.dongjoo@joongang.co.kr]
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