Xo So Kien Thiet

How the paper lottery works

Xo so kien thiet, literally "construction lottery," is Vietnam's provincial paper lottery, with pre-printed tickets sold for VND 10,000 and draws broadcast on radio and TV every day of the week, each day belonging to a different southern province. The name comes from the original purpose: proceeds were earmarked for public construction and welfare projects, and provincial lottery companies still fund infrastructure and social programs today.

The mechanics are simple. A traditional lottery ticket comes pre-printed with its price, a set of digits and sometimes letters, and you choose the ticket you want from what the vendor has on hand⁶. There is no form to fill in and no numbers to pick yourself on the basic ticket. You look through the stack, find a number you like, pay, and wait for the draw.

The winning results are determined after the tickets go on sale, by a draw held in public and broadcast live. Each provincial company runs its own draw on its own day, so somewhere in southern Vietnam there is a draw every single day of the week. The draws are televised and broadcast on radio, and results are published on each company's website the same day.

If your ticket matches several prize categories at once, you are paid the full value of every prize it wins, not just the biggest one¹. This matters more than it sounds: the prize tables are built so that partial matches, such as sharing the last two or three digits of the special prize number, also win smaller prizes.

The odds of hitting the top prize on a traditional ticket are about one in a million, which is part of why the smaller prize tiers exist and why so many players treat the last two digits as the realistic target⁷.

The northern 5-digit ticket

In the north of Vietnam, the traditional ticket is a 5-digit type called xổ số truyền thống 5 chữ số. Each ticket carries five pre-printed digits, running from 00000 to 99999 within each issuance series, so every series offers all 100,000 possible numbers⁸.

The northern provinces issue their tickets jointly under the Northern Lottery Council model, selling a shared ticket called "Xổ số kiến thiết miền Bắc" across the whole region rather than each province running its own separate draw¹. This is why northerners talk about "xo so mien bac" as a single daily game, while southerners talk about individual provincial stations.

The prize structure scales with the size of the issue. For a 15-symbol issue, the special prize covers 6 tickets with a total value of VND 3 billion, drawn as one set of 5 numbers and 6 symbols. For a 20-symbol issue, the special prize covers 8 tickets with a total value of VND 4 billion¹. Below the special prize sits an encouragement prize worth VND 40,000 each, paid to every ticket whose last two digits match the last two digits of the special prize number¹.

The 5-digit ticket is one of the lottery types formally listed in the government's regulations on lottery business, alongside the 6-digit traditional ticket, self-selected number games and instant scratch tickets⁷. The 6-digit version is the standard format in the south, which is what the provincial companies below use.

Southern tickets and where they are sold

In the south, each province has its own lottery company, its own ticket and its own draw day. The traditional southern ticket is a 6-digit type, and the draws rotate through the week, with Friday being the one day with two southern draws of interest to most players, Vinh Long and Binh Duong¹. The schedule, which also governs the self-selected tickets described later, is:

²

Binh Duong is the exception in this rotation: its draw is held every Friday, broadcast live on FM 92.5 MHz of the Ho Chi Minh City Radio and Television station⁹. So Friday is the one day with two southern draws of interest to most players, Vinh Long and Binh Duong.

Tickets are sold through networks of agents and street vendors. In Ho Chi Minh City and other southern towns you will see sellers on motorbikes and at market stalls with stacks of paper tickets fanned out, usually right up until the afternoon draw. A ticket belongs to the station that issued it, so you check the results and claim any prize with that same station, not with whichever company happens to be drawing that day¹⁰.

Traditional tickets are issued daily, with 27 draws in the standard cycle, and the special prize on the shared daily ticket is VND 500 million per prize³. The provincial 6-digit games described below pay more.

Binh Duong Construction Lottery: ticket price, prizes and draw day

The Binh Duong Construction Lottery (XSKT Binh Duong) sells a 6-digit traditional ticket for VND 10,000¹¹. Each series contains 1,000,000 tickets, and the total prize value across a full series is VND 5,000,000,000¹¹.

The draw is held every Friday and broadcast live on FM 92.5 MHz of the Ho Chi Minh City Radio and Television station¹¹. If you miss the broadcast, you can call the results line on 0274-3824151 or 0274-3827446¹⁰, or check the company's website, which posts the full prize table for each draw.

A recent draw gives a feel for the numbers. On September 25, 2026, draw 09K39 paid out a first prize of VND 30,000,000 to ticket 73243, a second prize of VND 15,000,000 to 96902, two third prizes of VND 10,000,000 each to 81050 and 89385, a fourth prize of VND 3,000,000, a sixth prize of VND 400,000, and a seventh prize of VND 200,000 to tickets ending in 347¹⁰.

If you win, fill in your full details on the back of the ticket and bring it together with your citizen ID card when you claim¹⁰. And remember the station rule: a Binh Duong ticket is checked and claimed with Binh Duong, regardless of where you bought it.

Tay Ninh traditional lottery: prize table from special to eighth

The Tay Ninh Construction Lottery runs its traditional draw every Thursday at 16:10⁶. Its 6-digit ticket has one of the most detailed prize tables in the south, with ten separate prize categories. Here is the full structure:

⁴

Two things stand out. The special prize of VND 2 billion is among the biggest single-ticket payouts in Vietnamese paper lottery. And the eighth prize, paid to any ticket matching the last two digits, has 10,000 winners per draw, which is why so much of the street-level excitement around draw time centers on those final two digits.

There is also an encouragement prize of VND 6,000,000 each for 45 tickets that differ from the special prize number by just one digit in any position, except the hundred-thousands position⁴. So even a near miss on the big one can still pay.

The full terms and results are published at www.xosotayninh.com.vn⁴.

Tay Ninh self-selected tickets: 3-digit bets and prizes

Alongside the traditional ticket, Tay Ninh sells self-selected tickets (vé số tự chọn) where you choose your own numbers instead of taking a pre-printed one. These come in three denominations: VND 10,000, VND 20,000 and VND 50,000, with prizes scaling up with the denomination².

The 3-digit version lets you pick any three digits from 000 to 999, with five bet types: Đầu (D, front), Cuối (C, back), Đầu/Cuối (D/C, front or back), 7 lô (7L) and 17 lô (17L)². The prizes at each denomination are:

¹²

The Đầu and Cuối bets pay a flat VND 5,000,000 regardless of denomination, while the other bet types scale with the ticket price. The results for these bets are taken from the same southern provincial draws listed earlier, so a Thursday bet reads off the Tay Ninh traditional draw, a Wednesday bet off Dong Nai, and so on².

Self-selected tickets are issued in six-month cycles, with Kỳ 1 running from January 1 to June 30 and Kỳ 2 from July 1 to December 31 each year². Total payouts across the game are capped at no more than 60% of the total value of tickets issued¹².

Two-digit bets: Đầu/Cuối and lô prizes

The 2-digit self-selected ticket works the same way but with two digits, and four bet types: Đầu, Cuối, Đầu/Cuối and 18 lô². The prizes are:

²

The 18 lô bet is the small-change end of the scale: VND 39,000 back on a VND 10,000 ticket, but with the best hit rate of any bet on the board. The Đầu and Cuối bets again pay a flat VND 700,000 at every denomination.

There is also a 4-digit self-selected ticket with a single bet type, 16 lô, paying VND 2,000,000 on the VND 10,000 ticket, VND 4,000,000 on the VND 20,000 ticket and VND 10,000,000 on the VND 50,000 ticket¹².

Agents and retail points have per-draw sales limits on each bet type and denomination, which is why a popular number can occasionally be "sold out" at a particular vendor late in the day².

Who can play

The eligibility rules are the same across these games and are stated plainly in the Tay Ninh terms: players must be Vietnamese citizens, Vietnamese residing abroad, or foreigners who enter Vietnam legally, and must be 18 or older². So a visitor or expat legally in the country can buy tickets without any special arrangement.

Two practical restrictions matter. First, tickets are sold only in person at agents and retail points; buying lottery tickets online is not permitted under current regulations, so any website offering to sell you a Vietnamese paper ticket is operating outside the rules¹³. Second, having a third party buy tickets on your behalf through informal channels is not recognized, and Vietlott has publicly warned customers against these arrangements¹⁴. Buy your own ticket, from a licensed vendor, and keep it.

Claiming a prize

Winning tickets must be claimed within 30 days of the draw date, after which they lose all claim value⁵. This 30-day window is the standard for provincial paper lottery tickets, and it is shorter than the 60 days Vietlott gives on its computerized games, so do not sit on a winning ticket.

For Tay Ninh prizes, you claim in person at the company office at 315A Tran Hung Dao street, Khu phố 22, Tân Ninh ward, Tay Ninh province, or at any of the company's level 1 agents⁵. Payment is made no later than 5 days from the date your claim is accepted². Prizes are paid in cash or by bank transfer, after deducting personal income tax on lottery winnings as prescribed².

The ticket itself must be intact: issued by the company, whole in form and size, not torn apart, not patched, not erased or altered⁵. If a ticket has faded or torn for objective reasons, the company will still consider paying it if all of the following conditions are met⁵:

• It can be reassembled
• Its original shape and authenticity can be determined
• The tear does not affect the elements checked for the win
• There is no suspicion of fraud
• You provide a reasonable written explanation⁵

A ticket that is burned or torn in a way that loses more than 20% of its area is not paid at all². If a claim requires police verification before payment, the verification fee is paid by the ticket owner⁵.

If you cannot claim in person, you can authorize someone else, but the authorization must be in writing and confirmed by the local authority where you reside². Without that document, no one else will be paid.