Warning: This article contains spoilers for Squid Game.
In James Wan’s Saw movies, Squid Game pits ordinary people against each other in a series of death games. But apart from staying alive, the prize for winning Squid Game involves more than enough money for its desperate players to start anew.
Indeed, the 45.6 billion won Squid Game prize money is the proverbial dangling carrot. It’s there to motivate and extract the maximum effort from all of Squid Game’s 456 players, every single one of which is an extremely desperate and heavily indebted individual. In Squid Game episode 2, it’s revealed that the death of each player contributes 100,000,000 won to the massive piggy bank displayed above the player’s dorm room. As players die one by one, more and more money is funneled into this piggy bank, and the Squid Game prize money gets closer and closer to the promised 45.6 billion won. And finally, during the ending of Squid Game, this amount is reached when only one person survives.
So how much is the Squid Game prize money in USD? 45.6 billion Korean won is currently worth around $38.6 million or £28.2 million. That’s more than enough for Gi-hun to pay off his debts and get custody of his daughter, for Kang Sae-byok (Jung Ho-yeon) to extract her family from North Korea and live a nice life in Seoul, or for Cho Sang-woo (Park Hae-soo) to give back what he stole and avoid going to prison. Although 45.6 billion isn’t nearly enough for a person to be considered a billionaire on U.S. soil, $38.6 million is still a large sum of money, especially taking into that the average American citizen will earn approximately $3 million in their lifetime, for example.
Moreover, the Squid Game prize money's figure of 456 is a recurring theme throughout the survival drama series. In Squid Game episode 1, Gi-hun earned 4,560,000 won after betting on horses during his daughter’s birthday. And as the last player chosen for Squid Game, Seong Gi-hun is also known as Player 456. This is important because Squid Game isn’t just about money, as it deeply explores themes of morality and wealth inequality.
Indeed, 45.6 billion Korean won is not just the grand prize – it also represents every single one of the players in Squid Game’s cast of characters. Moreover, the fact that the people behind Squid Game can give away 45.6 billion won, while financing the island’s day-to-day operations, is also telling of just how rich and powerful the VIPs behind the games truly are.