Lotto drawing 1203 first-prize winner has until Dec. 21 to claim W1.37b

A first-prize winning ticket from Lotto drawing 1203, held last December, has yet to be claimed. The 1.37 billion won ($1.03 million) prize expires Dec. 21, after which the full amount will be transferred to the national lottery fund.

Dong-haeng Lottery, the state-authorized lottery operator, announced Friday that one first-prize ticket and two second-prize tickets from drawing 1203, drawn Dec. 20 last year, remain uncollected.

The unclaimed first-prize amount is 1.37 billion won. The winning numbers were 3, 6, 18, 29, 35 and 39, and the ticket was sold at a lottery shop on Jingeon-Onam-ro in Namyangju, Gyeonggi Province.

The two unclaimed second-prize tickets from the same drawing are each worth 40.58 million won. Those tickets were sold at lottery shops at the Haengdamdo rest stop along the West Coast Expressway in Dangjin, South Chungcheong Province, and on Gyeongsu-daero in Manan-gu, Anyang, Gyeonggi Province. Second-prize winners matched five of the six first-prize numbers plus the bonus number, 24.

All three prizes must be claimed by Dec. 21. Lotto winnings must be collected within one year of the prize payment start date. Under the Lottery and Lottery Fund Act, any unclaimed prize money is transferred in full to the lottery fund, where it is used for public-interest projects including residential support for vulnerable groups, youth scholarships and cultural heritage preservation.

Kim Jong-un, head of Dong-haeng Lottery's service division, urged anyone who purchased a ticket and has not yet checked whether it won to look again before the deadline. He also said people sometimes forget to check tickets bought while traveling or on business trips, and asked buyers to check any tickets left in their cars or luggage.