Worker discovers first- and second-prize lottery wins among months of unchecked tickets

An office worker who bought lottery tickets on his commute home every day struck remarkable luck after checking months' worth of accumulated tickets — and finding both a first- and second-prize winner among them.

According to a winner interview for the 317th showing of the Pension Lottery 720+ released recently by Dong-haeng Lottery, the winner, identified only as A, purchased the tickets at a lottery retailer in Nam-gu, Busan.

A said he had a habit of not checking his tickets right away, instead setting them aside for months before reviewing them all at once.

One day, while visiting the shop as usual to buy more tickets, the store owner told him a first-prize Pension Lottery winner had come from their outlet and asked whether he had checked his tickets.

Curious, A went home and checked his stockpile one by one, confirming that one of them was indeed a first-prize winner.

"Surprisingly, there was a first-prize Pension Lottery ticket among the ones I had been keeping," A recalled. "In a daze, I immediately told my parents, and they were overjoyed — they told me to go collect the winnings right away."

A, who said he had consistently bought both Lotto and Pension Lottery tickets every week, added that he planned to "manage the winnings efficiently through investment."

A first-prize winner of the Pension Lottery 720+ receives 7 million won ($4,530) per month for 20 years, while a second-prize winner receives 1 million won per month for 10 years. For someone who wins both one first-prize ticket and four second-prize tickets simultaneously, the actual monthly take-home after taxes comes to about 8.58 million won for the first 10 years and about 5.46 million won per month for the following 10 years.