Two winning lottery tickets bought from the same shop in South Korea have seen calls of foul play emerge, with the country’s national lottery accused of fraud.
The unlucky coincidence of two winning tickets being bought from the same vendor comes after sixteen winning tickets included the six numbers that came out of the Saturday night draw last week – operated by the state-run Donghaeng Lotto.
While the sixteen winners will receive 1.9bn Won (£966,000), two of the winners both purchased their tickets from Comprehensive Lottery Super, a shop in Siheung, a city not far from Capital City Seoul.
The coincidence was made more extreme by the fact that each winner did not pick their own numbers, with the ticket vending machine randomising their selections. This has caused suspicion as the chances of the same machine selecting the same numbers for two people are incredibly small.
As with any lottery, the chances of winning at all are miniscule, with the odds to win South Korea’s jackpot coming in at one in 8,145,060.
South Korean lottery winners are also never identified, fueling the conspiracy theories and calls of fraud. Some members of the public have suggested that winning tickets are being handed out fraudulently after the numbers have been called.
However, the Ministry of Economy and Finance that operates the lottery reiterated that its systems are tamper-proof, with the machines taken offline approximately 35 minutes before the draw begins.
Back in 2023, independent experts were invited to analyse the system after complaints about an abundance of winners, concluding that it was fair.