South Korean Wins Record-Breaking Lottery Prize in Vietnam

State lottery company Vietlott has awarded the Jackpot 1 prize to K.S.H, a South Korean national, who is the biggest foreign winner of a Vietnamese lottery to date. The prize exceeded VND100 billion ($3.8 million). K.S.H, who works for a company in Bac Ninh Province, has been a regular player for about five years, buying lottery tickets approximately twice a week, often in batches of 20 to 30, and up to 50 when the jackpot grows significantly. He was drawn to Vietnam's computerized lottery system as it resembled games he was familiar with in South Korea. The winning numbers for the draw on July 11 were 09-17-20-33-41-42, which had accumulated for about a month and a half. The odds of winning Jackpot 1 are approximately 1 in 28.9 million. After paying VND10.28 billion in personal income tax, K.S.H takes home over VND92.5 billion. He also donated VND1.5 billion to charity through the Tam Tai Viet social fund. K.S.H is the fourth foreigner to win on Vietlott's Mega 6/45 or Power 6/55 games. Previously, two South Koreans and one Chinese national had won. The previous foreign record was VND32.6 billion ($1.24 million), claimed by one of the South Koreans in Ho Chi Minh City in mid-2025. In its 10 years of operation, Vietlott had paid out nearly VND31 trillion ($1.18 billion) in prizes as of early June. A total of 533 players have won Jackpots of VND1 billion or more, worth nearly VND12.18 trillion combined. Of these, 130 purchased tickets via SMS and 403 through traditional outlets. Vietlott is wholly owned by the Ministry of Finance and operates over 6,100 outlets across Vietnam, along with a phone-based system with over 4 million registered accounts. The company plans to introduce online ticket sales in the future.