Speed Kino

A lottery game that never makes you wait

Speed Kino is Korea's take on keno, a number-draw lottery game that runs at a pace most lotteries never attempt. Instead of waiting days for a result, you get a fresh draw every 5 minutes, all day long. It is one of several electronic lottery games offered by Donghaeng Lottery, the state-backed operator that also runs Lotto 6/45 and the other draw games described on our South Korea lottery page.

The game sits in the same family as keno games found elsewhere in the world: you choose a set of numbers, a machine draws a larger set, and you win according to how many of yours came up. Keno is generally described as a fast, easy-to-play lottery game, and also as a high-risk one, because the odds of the top prizes are long². Speed Kino is no different in that respect. What sets it apart is the speed and the fact that it is sold exclusively online, through the Donghaeng Lottery website¹.

The first prize carries a base amount of KRW 25,000,000, with a maximum possible prize of KRW 1,000,000,000¹. Donghaeng Lottery guarantees a minimum of 25 million won for the first prize⁴. For a game that costs KRW 1,000 per entry, that is a serious headline, though as with any keno-style game, the top prizes are rare.

How to play: pick 2 to 10 numbers from 1 to 70

The basic mechanic is simple. You choose between 2 and 10 numbers from a field of 1 to 70. In each round, 22 numbers are drawn, and you win according to how many of your chosen numbers match the drawn numbers¹.

The number you pick matters a great deal, because the prize structure changes with the size of your selection¹. A 2-number game pays KRW 6,000 if both numbers match, while a 10-number game pays a percentage of the prize pool if all 10 match. In between, every pick size has its own prize table, its own odds, and its own character:

• Pick 2: match both numbers to win KRW 6,000. Odds of the top prize are 1 in 10.5¹
• Pick 4: match all 4 to win KRW 16,000, at odds of 1 in 125.3¹
• Pick 5: match all 5 to win KRW 55,000, at odds of 1 in 459.6¹
• Pick 6: match all 6 to win KRW 120,000, at odds of 1 in 1,757.3¹
• Pick 7: match all 7 to win KRW 550,000, at odds of 1 in 7,029.1¹
• Pick 8: match all 8 to win KRW 1,200,000, at odds of 1 in 29,522.3¹
• Pick 9: match all 9 to win KRW 5,500,000, at odds of 1 in 130,741.7¹
• Pick 10: match all 10 to win 12.6% of the prize pool, at odds of 1 in 613,480.2¹

You can buy up to 10 tickets with the same numbers in a single purchase¹. So if you like a particular set of numbers, you can stack them, and each ticket pays separately if they hit.

Most pick sizes also pay smaller prizes for partial matches. Pick 8, for example, pays KRW 90,000 for 7 matches, KRW 9,000 for 6 matches, and KRW 3,000 for 5 matches⁵. Pick 9 pays KRW 500,000 for 8 matches, KRW 50,000 for 7 matches, and KRW 7,500 for 6 matches⁵. Pick 10 pays KRW 1,000,000 for 9 matches, KRW 100,000 for 8 matches, KRW 10,000 for 7 matches, KRW 2,000 for 6 matches, and KRW 1,000 for 5 matches⁵. This is why the larger pick sizes have longer overall odds but more ways to win something back.

Price per game: KRW 1,000

Each game costs KRW 1,000, whether you are playing a 2-number game or a 10-number game¹. That is the same price as most of Donghaeng Lottery's other online games, including Powerball, Mega Bingo and Triple Luck, which makes it easy to mix products within your daily budget.

Because the price is flat, the choice of pick size is purely about the prize structure you prefer. A KRW 1,000 pick 2 ticket competes for KRW 6,000; the same KRW 1,000 on a pick 10 ticket competes for a share of a pool that can reach KRW 1,000,000,000. Neither is a better bet in a mathematical sense, since the payout percentages are similar across pick sizes, but the experience is very different.

Draws every 5 minutes, 22 numbers each round

Speed Kino is an electronic draw lottery that draws 22 numbers every 5 minutes¹. That cadence is the game's defining feature. A traditional lottery such as Lotto 6/45 draws once a week; Speed Kino draws 12 times an hour, so a new result is always just minutes away.

For comparison, keno games in other countries also run on short cycles, with some drawing every 3.5 minutes². Speed Kino's 5-minute cycle means that if you buy a ticket just before a draw, you will know your result almost immediately, and if you miss it, the next one is minutes away.

Each round draws 22 numbers out of the 70-number field¹. Since nearly a third of the field comes up in every draw, partial matches are common, which is why the larger pick sizes pay prizes for matching only 5, 6 or 7 of your numbers.

Where and when you can buy tickets

Speed Kino is sold over the internet, through the Donghaeng Lottery website¹. There is no retail version of the game, so you need to register on the site to play. Because everything happens online, you can buy tickets from wherever you have an internet connection.

Practically, this means the game fits into any part of the day. Draws run every 5 minutes, so you never wait long for the next one, and the schedule is the same every day of the week, including weekends and holidays.

If you are used to buying paper lottery tickets at convenience stores, this is a different experience. Everything happens in your account: you pick your numbers, pay, watch the draw, and any winnings are handled through the site. Our page on gambling payments in South Korea covers how money moves in and out of these official sites.

Prizes: KRW 25,000,000 base first prize, up to KRW 1,000,000,000 maximum

The headline prize structure is one of the most generous among Donghaeng Lottery's online games. The first prize has a base amount of KRW 25,000,000 and a maximum of KRW 1,000,000,000¹. Donghaeng Lottery guarantees a minimum of 25 million won for the first prize⁴.

The top prize in the pick 10 game is paid as 12.6% of the prize pool¹, which is how the first prize can climb from its base toward the KRW 1,000,000,000 ceiling. The exact amount in any given round depends on the size of the pool.

Below the top tier, the fixed prizes by pick size are:

These figures come from the operator's official game rules¹. The pick 3 game also exists: matching all 3 numbers pays KRW 10,000, at odds of 1 in 35.5¹.

First-prize odds and prizes by pick size

The odds of hitting the top prize vary enormously with your pick size, from 1 in 10.5 for a 2-number game to 1 in 613,480.2 for matching all 10¹. Here is how the overall odds of winning any prize compare across pick sizes⁵:

The pattern is interesting. Mid-size picks, especially pick 6, offer the best chance of winning something in a given round, because they have several partial-match tiers. The pick 2 game has only one way to win, so its overall odds equal its top-prize odds. The pick 2 game has the longest overall odds of any pick size at 1 in 10.5, with pick 9 next at 1 in 7.8, because its lowest prize tier requires 6 matches out of 9.

Within each pick size, the odds of individual tiers also vary widely. In the pick 8 game, for example, the second prize (7 matches) is 1 in 1,153.2, the third prize (6 matches) is 1 in 112.2, and the fourth prize (5 matches) is 1 in 20.7⁵. In the pick 10 game, the fourth prize (7 matches) is 1 in 134.5, the fifth prize (6 matches) is 1 in 27.3, and the sixth prize (5 matches) is 1 in 8.8⁵.

The number-sum side bet

Alongside the main number-picking game, Speed Kino offers a number-sum game, a side bet on the total of the 22 drawn numbers¹. Instead of picking individual numbers, you pick a range for the sum, and you win if the sum of all 22 drawn numbers falls within your range.

The prize table for the sum game is built around how likely each range is. The ranges and prizes are⁵:

The overall odds of winning in the sum game are 1 in 1.0, meaning a ticket wins on average once per round across all tiers⁵. The top range, 253 to 486, is the hardest to hit and pays KRW 10,000,000¹.

One restriction applies: in the sum game, you can buy only one ticket per purchase in the first-prize range (253 to 486) and the second-prize range (487 to 512)¹. This is tighter than the main game, where the same numbers can be bought on up to 10 tickets.

Payout percentages across all prize tiers

The payout percentage, the share of sales returned to players as prizes, is published for each pick size. Across all prize tiers combined, the figures are⁵:

The differences between pick sizes are small, ranging from 56.4% to 60.4%. The game's overall payout rate is stated as 58.2% of sales¹. In practical terms, no pick size is dramatically more generous than another; the choice comes down to whether you prefer frequent small wins or rare large ones.

Within each pick size, the payout is distributed differently across tiers. In the pick 8 game, for example, the first prize accounts for 4.1% of the payout, the second prize 7.8%, the third 8.0%, and the fourth 14.5%⁵. In the pick 5 game, the first prize accounts for 12.0% and the second prize 16.0%⁵. In the pick 4 game, the first prize accounts for 12.8%⁵. The pattern is consistent: in the smaller pick sizes, a larger share of the money goes to the top tier, while in the bigger pick sizes, the partial-match tiers carry more of the weight.

Purchase limits: KRW 100,000 per day, KRW 150,000 combined on this site

Speed Kino has a daily purchase limit of KRW 100,000 per person¹. At KRW 1,000 per game, that is a maximum of 100 games in a day.

There is a second layer to the limit. On the Donghaeng Lottery website, your combined daily purchases across products are capped at KRW 150,000, within each product's own limit⁵. So even though Speed Kino alone allows KRW 100,000, you cannot spend KRW 100,000 on Speed Kino and then another KRW 100,000 on Powerball in the same day; the site-wide total stops at KRW 150,000.

These limits are a deliberate feature of Korea's legal online lottery system, and they apply to everyone playing on the official site. If you hit the cap, the site will simply stop accepting purchases until the next day.

The games that share the limit

Speed Kino's KRW 100,000 daily allowance is not its own. It is a combined limit shared with the other online draw and instant games on the Donghaeng Lottery site: Powerball, Speed Kino, Mega Bingo, Triple Luck, Treasure Hunter, Double Jack Maiders and Catch Me⁶. Your purchases of all these products are added together, and the total cannot exceed KRW 100,000 per person per day.

The KRW 150,000 site-wide cap adds the paper-style instant games and other products on top of that, within each product's individual limit⁵. For example, Speetto instant lottery tickets, sold at KRW 1,000 per game, have their own purchase cap of KRW 100,000 per person per purchase⁷, and Pension Lottery 720+ online purchases count toward the same KRW 150,000 combined site limit⁸.

For a Speed Kino player, the practical takeaway is simple: if you also play Powerball or any of the other electronic games described on our electronic lottery games page, budget across all of them together, not per game.

Who can play

Speed Kino is run under the Lottery and Lottery Fund Act, Korea's law covering the state lottery system⁵. Because tickets are sold only through the Donghaeng Lottery website, playing requires registering an account on the official site, which is set up for Korean residents.

For visitors and short-term stays, this is the practical barrier: without a resident registration or the credentials the site requires, you generally cannot open an account or buy tickets. Foreign residents of Korea who have the necessary registration can play the same way citizens do. If you are visiting and want to gamble, the foreigner-only casinos in South Korea are the route open to you, and our page on gambling in South Korea as a visitor explains how that works.

One honest note on the game itself: keno-style games are rated as high-risk by gambling guidance bodies, because the odds of top prizes are long and the fast draw cycle makes it easy to play many rounds quickly². The 5-minute pace that makes Speed Kino fun is also what makes a daily spending cap worth respecting.