“Squid Game” may be praised for its wild twists and compelling characters, but at the end of the day, it’s all about the money. That can be confusing for some American audiences since all of the cash in this Netflix thriller is calculated in South Korean won.
By now it’s fairly well known that 45.6 billion won — the most amount of money a winner can take home — is equivalent to tens of millions of U.S. dollars. But that’s not the only figure that appears in Season 2 of this award-winning drama. Consider this your guide to how some of the most important amounts of money this season equate to USD.
By now, nearly everyone associates “Squid Game” with one number: 45.6 billion. That’s the amount of won the winner of the game can take home if they play to the very end. That number also means the 455 other contestants who played alongside the winner have been killed.
In December of 2024, which is when Season 2 of “Squid Game” premiered, 45.6 billion won equated to a little more than $31 million.
Players aren’t the only ones motivated by money this season. After winning the game in Season 1, Gi-hun (Lee Jung-jae) became obsessed with finding and stopping the creators of the Squid Game once and for all. And in the second episode of Season 2, he proves he’s willing to put his money where his mouth is to get what he wants, telling his network of hired gangsters he will give a 500 million won bonus to anyone who finds The Recruiter (Gong Yoo). That dangling carrot inspires Gi-hun’s hired hands to work extra hard for him.
At the time of publication, 500 million won equates to roughly $340,000.
Squid Game has always included a rule that the game can come to an end if the majority of players agree to stop playing. But in Season 2, that rule is capitalized upon as the game now includes a group vote after every game. After the first game, the jackpot went up to about 25 million won per person for the remaining players, which equates to about $17,000.
The jackpot then went up to 78 million won per person after 110 players were eliminated in the second game. That comes out to about $53,000 per person, a number that leads to a massive debate in the fifth episode of Season 5, “One More Game.”
“I don’t know how much you owe, but for some people here that doesn’t even cover 10% of their debt,” Player 100 argues. He then points out that after the first game, the jackpot more than tripled. By that logic, it’s possible that the jackpot will triple again after the third game (of course, that monetary increase comes with a lot more deaths). The players who want to continue rally behind the idea they can leave after the jackpot has reached 240 million won per person, or a little more than $163,000.
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