Korean working in Vietnam wins lottery jackpot — record payout for a foreigner

A Korean man working in Vietnam has won the top prize in the country's state lottery, taking home about 5.79 billion won ($3.92 million). The payout is the largest ever recorded by a foreigner in Vietnam's lottery history.

According to Vietnamese outlet VnExpress, state lottery operator Vietlott paid the Korean winner, identified only as Mr. A, 102.8 billion dong in its "Power 6/55" jackpot on Tuesday (local time).

In photos released by Vietlott, Mr. A wore a black hoodie, a gold mask and sunglasses to conceal his identity.

Mr. A purchased a ticket bearing the numbers 09, 17, 20, 33, 41 and 42 at a lottery outlet on Nguyen Dang Dao Street in Bac Ninh Province and won the July 11 draw. He is understood to work at a foreign-invested company in Bac Ninh Province. The odds of winning the Power 6/55 jackpot stand at roughly 1 in 28.9 million — about 3.6 times lower than the 1-in-8.14-million odds of South Korea's Lotto 6/45.

Mr. A said he had been buying Vietnamese lottery tickets for four to five years. He typically purchased 20 to 30 tickets twice a week, and bought as many as 50 tickets at once when the jackpot had rolled over to a large sum.

Under local tax law, Mr. A paid 10 percent of his winnings — 10.28 billion dong — as personal income tax, receiving the remaining 92.5 billion dong, or about 5.2 billion won. He is reported to have donated 1.5 billion dong to a charitable organization.

This marks the fourth time a foreigner has won a Vietlott jackpot. Two other Koreans and one Chinese national had previously claimed first-place prizes. Mr. A's payout is the largest among all foreign winners to date; the previous record for a foreign winner was 32.6 billion dong, or about 1.8 billion won, set by another Korean.