Will a Torn or Damaged Vietlott Ticket Still Be Paid?

Where and how Vietlott tickets are sold

Vietlott runs two official sales channels: sales points across the country and the Vietlott SMS app on your phone³. The company sells its self-selected number products nationwide and covers 34 provinces and cities³. If you are not sure whether a seller is genuine, those two channels are the only ones that count.

At a sales point, you fill in a play slip, hand it to the salesperson, take the printed ticket and pay the entry value printed on the ticket⁵. Play slips and pencils are kept at the counter, so you do not need to bring anything except money. The terminal prints your numbers, the draw details and a code that identifies the ticket on Vietlott's system.

On your phone, you buy through the Vietlott SMS app. For Bingo18, bets are confirmed by SMS from the number 9969⁷. The official app website is vietlott-sms.vn³. Max 3D and LOTTO 5/35 can both be bought at sales points or on mobile through the app⁴.

Vietlott's products include Mega 6/45, Power 6/55, Max 3D, Max 3D Pro, Keno, Bingo18 and LOTTO 5/35⁹. Keno sells tickets continuously throughout the duration of each draw, so there is no long wait between buying and the result¹⁰.

Who can buy: you must be 18 years old or older to play Max 3D and Keno, and the same minimum age applies across Vietlott's games⁴. That rule applies to citizens, foreign residents and visitors alike. There is no separate tourist ticket and no residency requirement to buy at a counter.

What makes a ticket valid in the first place

Before worrying about damage, it helps to know what Vietlott checks on any winning ticket. The ticket must be recorded on Vietlott's system before the ticket sales cutoff time set by the Ministry of Finance and each product's participation rules. It must not already be recorded as paid, it must be within the claim period, and your betting information must match the registered betting account information².

That last point matters most for app players. If you bought through the Vietlott SMS app, the claim has to line up with the account the ticket was registered to. If someone else's account bought the ticket, or the registered details do not match, the claim gets complicated even if the ticket itself is in perfect condition.

For a paper ticket, the system record is what the terminal printed when you paid. That is why the printed code matters so much when a ticket is torn: it is the link between the piece of paper in your hand and the record on Vietlott's system.

Is a torn or damaged Vietlott ticket still valid?

The practical rule is simple. A prize can be paid on a damaged ticket if the code can still be read, or if the ticket can be clearly proven to be a winning ticket. In that situation you bring it to the office for verification¹.

So the answer depends on how bad the damage is:

• Creased, folded, slightly stained, corner torn off: usually fine, as long as the code and the printed numbers are readable.
• Torn in half but both pieces kept: often still payable if the code reads and the two halves clearly belong together. Take both pieces.
• Torn into several pieces, or the code area destroyed: much harder. If the code cannot be read and the ticket cannot be clearly proven to be a winner, there is nothing to match against the system record.
• Faded by heat, water or sunlight so the print is gone: treat this like an unreadable code.
• Taped, patched, laminated or written on: do not do this. Vietnamese lottery rules require a ticket presented for prize payment to remain in its original form and original size, not torn apart, not patched, not erased and not altered¹¹. Taping a tear can turn a payable ticket into a disputed one.

The same principle shows up in other Asian lotteries, which is a useful sanity check on how seriously operators treat the physical ticket.

Vietlott sits on the more forgiving side, but only up to the point where the ticket can still be identified.

If your ticket is damaged, the practical steps are:

1. Stop handling it. Put it flat in a hard envelope or between two stiff cards so it does not tear further.
2. Do not tape, glue, laminate, iron or write on it.
3. Photograph both sides in good light while it is still intact, in case it deteriorates further.
4. Check the result. You can scan the ticket at checkwin machines at sales points, or check it on the Vietlott SMS app⁸.
5. Take the ticket, in person, to a sales point or to Vietlott for verification. Do this well before the deadline, not on the last day.

Prize claim deadline: 60 days for Jackpot tickets

The claim deadline for a Vietlott winning ticket is 60 days from the date the draw result is determined. Past that, the winning ticket no longer has claim value².

Sixty days sounds generous until you count backwards from a holiday, a work trip or a lost weekend. If you win a Jackpot, treat the first week as the window to start the claim, not the last week.

A few practical points on timing:

• Prize claims are accepted and paid at least 60 minutes after the draw results are officially announced on the Vietlott website². You cannot walk in the moment the numbers drop.
• Vietlott pays no later than 5 working days from the date it or the agent receives the prize payment request².
• For terminal channel tickets worth VND 10 billion or less, Vietlott authorizes the agent to pay the prize².
• For phone channel tickets worth VND 10 million or less, the agent pays automatically into the winner's receiving account no later than 5 working days from the date the draw result is determined².
• For phone channel tickets worth over VND 10 million up to VND 10 billion, the agent pays automatically into the registered receiving account no later than 5 working days from the date the draw result is determined².
• For phone channel tickets worth over VND 10 billion, the head office receives the claim and organizes payment no later than 5 working days from the date Vietlott receives the payment request. If the claimant asks to be paid at a branch, the branch handles it².
• If a dispute or complaint arises, the payment time is extended until the competent state authority gives its official conclusion².

For context on how these windows compare, China's Super Lotto gives winners 60 natural days from the draw date, after which the prize is forfeited and the money goes to the lottery public welfare fund¹⁵. The China Football Lottery Win-Draw-Loss game also uses 60 natural days, counted from the day after the last match on the ticket is drawn¹⁶. Vietlott's 60 days is in the same range, but it is counted from the date the result is determined, so the clock starts on draw night.

One more thing worth knowing: Vietlott has run refunds before. When Keno and Bingo18 tickets for draws 0243373 to 0243379 of July 1, 2025 were affected, customers took their tickets to the point of sale that issued them and were refunded the full value they paid, with agents and points of sale collecting the tickets and Vietlott refunding them¹⁷. That is a different situation from a damaged ticket, but it shows the sales point is the first place to go when something is wrong with a ticket.

Who to contact if your ticket is damaged

Start where you bought it. A sales point can scan the ticket at a checkwin machine and tell you whether it reads as a winner⁸. If the code is readable, the sales point is also the place where smaller prizes get paid.

If the ticket is damaged enough that the machine will not read it, go up a level:

• Vietlott customer care hotline: 1900.55.88.89⁶. Use this for questions about a damaged ticket, a claim, or a message you think is fake.
• Vietlott main telephone: 024.62.686.818⁹.
• Vietlott sales points are listed by province on the company's site, with full street addresses, so you can find the nearest one before you travel¹⁹.

When you contact Vietlott, have the following ready: the ticket itself, the draw number and date, the game name, the numbers you played, and the approximate time and place of purchase. If you bought through the app, have the account details to hand, because the claim has to match the registered betting account information².

If you are claiming in person, bring the ticket and photo identification. Vietlott's rules require the betting information to match the registered account information, and for a large prize the head office or branch will need to identify you before paying².

For a very large prize, expect the process to take a little longer than the 5 working days minimum, simply because verification of a damaged ticket takes human review. That is another reason to start early.

What Vietlott does not do: no advance fees or tax transfers

Vietlott does not require advance transfers of money, prize fees or personal income tax⁶. It also does not operate revenue-running schemes⁶.

That single fact is the fastest way to spot a scam. Vietlott has warned that scammers misuse its image to defraud customers, including revenue-task schemes with commission and fake Vietlott accounts running "xổ số cào online" programs that demand fees and personal income tax before releasing a prize⁶.

If you get a message saying you have won and asking you to pay a fee, a tax or a deposit first, it is not Vietlott. Real prize payment runs the other way: you present the ticket, Vietlott verifies it, and money is paid to you.

To stay on the safe side:

• Buy only at official sales points or through the Vietlott SMS app⁶.
• Follow Vietlott's official Fanpage and website for announcements⁶.
• Check results on the official site or the app rather than on a link someone sent you.
• Call the customer care hotline on 1900.55.88.89 if a message claims to be from Vietlott and you are not sure⁶.

The short version

A damaged Vietlott ticket is not automatically dead. If the code can be read, or the ticket can be clearly proven to be a winning ticket, Vietlott can pay it, and you take it in for verification¹. Keep it flat, do not tape or laminate it, and remember that Vietnamese lottery rules expect a ticket presented for payment to be in its original form and size, not torn apart, patched, erased or altered¹¹.

The clock is the real risk. You have 60 days from the date the draw result is determined, and after that the ticket has no claim value². Vietlott pays within 5 working days of receiving your request, so a damaged ticket handled in week one is a routine problem, and the same ticket handled in week nine is a race².

If you want the wider picture on how claims work across the region, see how to claim a lottery prize in Asia and lost, torn or damaged lottery tickets. For the rules on who may play and how old you must be, see what is the minimum age to play Vietlott.