New Delhi, Oct. 12 -- Retail investors are estimated to have lost 2.3 trillion won ($1.7 billion) from leveraged exchange-traded products tracking South Korea's two chipmaking giants in just months, according to a lawmaker's office, in the first revelation of the magnitude of risks from such bets.

Clients of 10 Korean brokerages incurred the losses from single-stock ETFs and notes tied to Samsung Electronics Co. and SK Hynix Inc. between May 27 and Aug. 14, according to the office of Choi Eun-seok, a lawmaker from the opposition People Power Party.

The losses followed a surge in leveraged bets on South Korea's AI-centric stock market. The wild swings caused by the risky products have since prompted regulators to cool the fervour among m...