SMEs ministry opens consumer lottery tied to Korea Grand Festival

The SMEs ministry said Wednesday it will run a consumer lottery from Oct. 15 to Nov. 15, offering 5,600 people a total of 1.7 billion won ($1.27 million) in digital gift vouchers to stoke spending ahead of the Korea Grand Festival.

The lottery, called the Win-Win Consumption Lottery, is open to anyone who spends at least 30,000 won ($22) using the Digital Onnuri app at offline merchants of the digital Onnuri gift certificate network of traditional markets and shopping districts.

Entries will be weighted toward spending outside the capital region: one entry ticket for every 30,000 won spent in the capital region, two for the same amount elsewhere, up to 30 tickets per person. Tickets are credited based on where the money was spent, not where the user lives, and the ten first-prize winners of 30 million won ($22,380) each will be drawn only from participants holding tickets issued for non-capital-region purchases.

Prizes below first place will be drawn without regional restrictions: 40 second-prize winners will each receive 2 million won ($1,492), 850 third-prize winners 1 million won ($746) each and 4,700 fourth-prize winners 100,000 won ($75). Winners cannot take more than one prize.

The lottery changes how the ministry tallies entries. Last year, tickets were issued through the Win-Win Payback website based on credit card spending; this year, entries will be based on offline Digital Onnuri merchant transactions. Winners will be selected through a drawing and notified individually in early December through the Digital Onnuri app, with the prize money paid during December as digital Onnuri gift certificates through the same app.

The lottery is a curtain-raiser for the Korea Grand Festival, a government-wide discount event that runs from Oct. 29 to Nov. 15, or 18 days. It consolidates separate consumption campaigns run by individual ministries since 2025, with ten ministries taking part, including the SMEs ministry, the industry ministry, the culture ministry, the agriculture and oceans ministries and the customs agency. About 40,000 companies from manufacturing, distribution and services, along with small business owners, are participating.

Other incentives accompany the festival. The ministry said it will temporarily raise the Digital Onnuri discount rate to 10 percent from 7 percent during the event, while the culture ministry will distribute about 80,000 regional tourism accommodation coupons and the customs agency will run duty-free discount promotions of up to 25 percent.