Lottery sales in South Korea rose 10.3 percent on-year to reach an all-time high last year amid the COVID-19 pandemic, data showed.

Sales of lottery tickets stood at 5.98 trillion won ($5.02 billion) in 2021, compared to 5.42 trillion won the previous year, according to the data from the Finance Ministry.

The figure has been rising in recent years from 4.15 trillion won in 2017 to 4.38 trillion won in 2018 and further to 4.79 trillion won in 2019, the data showed.

By type, sales of online lottery tickets increased 8.4 percent on-year to 5.14 trillion won, and sales of pension-type tickets jumped 29.2 percent to 291.1 billion won, the data showed. (Yonhap)