Sales of lottery tickets in South Korea surged nearly 18 percent on-year in the first half of the year, data showed Wednesday, as more people sought to hit the jackpot amid a prolonged economic downturn.

Lottery sales came to 1.62 trillion won ($1.45 billion) during the January-June period, up 17.7 percent from a year earlier, according to the data by the Finance Ministry.

Total lottery proceeds reached 641 billion won in the six-month period, up 13.1 percent from a year earlier, while prize payouts rose 16.5 percent on-year to 831.3 billion won.

The sharp increase in lottery sales was attributed to a prolonged economic slump as well as the rising popularity of a pension-type lottery ticket.

“More lottery tickets were sold as ‘Pension Lottery 520’ launched in July 2011 became very popular,” a ministry official said. “The amount of payouts also increased as the pension-type lottery gives out two first prizes.”

The pension lotteries pay out prize money to winners in monthly installments of 5 million won over 20 years just like pensioners get their entitlements.

Lottery ticket sales bounced back in 2008 from a five-year decline that began in 2003 when the country was caught in a frenzy of playing the national lottery, named Lotto, with 4.23 trillion won worth of tickets sold. Last year, the government posted lottery sales of 3.1 trillion won. 

(Yonhap News)