Over half of people bought lottery tickets in 2012

Nearly six in every 10 South Koreans purchased lottery tickets at least once last year, a poll showed Thursday. According to the poll conducted by the finance ministry on a total of 1,002 people, 55.2 percent said that they had bought lottery tickets more than once last year. Though the ratio was slightly lower than a year earlier when 60.1 percent said they bought them, people tended to buy tickets more frequently, the poll showed. Of the purchasers, 18.6 percent said that they bought lottery tickets every week, up 1.8 parentage points from a year earlier. Those who bought lottery tickets every two or three weeks came to 13.6 percent, which was also up 1.2 percentage points from a year earlier. The poll showed that the respondents spent an average 7,449 won (US$6.7) in buying "Lotto," one of the most popular lottery products, followed by 6,618 won on pension-type lottery tickets and 5,496 won on scratch-off tickets, respectively. Of the purchasers, 72.6 percent came from a households whose monthly income was 3 million won or more. The ratio was higher than 69.4 percent tallied a year earlier. The government said earlier that lottery sales in South Korea increased 3.4 percent on-year in 2012 to 3.19 trillion won.