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Wednesday, May 10, 2017, 16:37
It’s like ‘dreaming in fantasyland’
By Duan Ting
Wednesday, May 10, 2017, 16:37 By Duan Ting

Published Time: Friday, November 18, 2016, 09:53


HK’s Mark Six lottery has remained hugely popular despite the overwhelming odds of hitting the jackpot.


 ‘I think it’s just a dream for Hong Kong people, not truly an investment and, if I lose, I would take it as a donation to charity,” admits Charlie Chan (anonymously), a lottery fan and a clerk working at a betting outlet of the Hong Kong Jockey Club (HKJC).

Chan has been trying his luck on the popular Mark Six lottery since he was 18, when he got tempted by a huge jackpot on offer, and had started betting regularly three to four years ago. He has been working for five years at the HKJC — the city’s non-profit-making organization holding the monopoly to operate and manage Hong Kong’s major legal forms of gambling — taking bets on horse racing, football and the Mark Six lottery.

The lottery requires a punter to accurately pick six of the total of 49 numbers to be drawn to win the first prize. The lottery has seen the numbers to be drawn grow from an initial 14 when it was first introduced in the mid-1970s to the present 49 and, despite the monumental odds in securing the first prize, it has created scores of multi-millionaires. Each bet, at present, sets a bettor back by HK$10. The lottery is drawn thrice a week — every Tuesday, Thursday and either Saturday or Sunday — depending on which day of the weekend horse racing is being held. Bets are accepted 15 minutes prior to each draw, which takes place at 9:30 pm.


Chan says in jest he’s a “charity fund collector”, explaining that he normally bets on three or four sets of numbers and would hold them valid for up to 30 draws. He estimates having to fork out a total of about HK$6,000 on the Mark Six annually. “The return is low indeed. I think I can get back HK$1,000 or less a year.”

Chan is just one of the tens of thousands of Hong Kong residents who have been trying their luck in one of the city’s most popular legal channels of gambling.

According to a report issued by Hong Kong Polytechnic University and the Home Affairs Bureau in 2012, some 56 percent of 2,024 people surveyed said they had betted on the Mark Six lottery, while 33 percent of the respondents were involved in other forms of gambling, such as playing mahjong or poker with friends or relatives. As for horse racing, nearly 13 percent of those polled had placed their bets, with 11.9 percent attending to the casinos in Macao and 6.6 percent betting on football matches.

Only 1.5 percent of those interviewed said they spent more than HK$1,000 on the Mark Six each month, and 2 percent wagered between HK$500 and HK$1,000. The majority, or 76.2 percent, dished out less than HK$100, and 20.3 percent forked out between HK$100 and HK$500 on the lottery.

According to an interim report by the HKJC this year, although betting on the Mark Six occupied the top spot with regard to the total number of punters, horse racing was the biggest revenue spinner, raking in HK$103.9 billion, followed by football matches with HK$86.6 billion and the Mark Six lottery with HK$8.55 billion.


To mark the 40th anniversary of the Mark Six lottery in March this year, a record HK$75-mllion snowball jackpot was up for grabs. The draw generated a turnover of HK$446 million — a record high in the lottery’s history.

Adolphus Lam (anonymously), who works for an audit company and has been a regular Mark Six punter, recalled the event as being “like a festival”, having flocked to the betting center with his colleagues to try their luck. “We were all banking on our luck and had even talked about how we would spend the money if we hit the jackpot. It’s becoming a culture in the office,” he laughed.


Contact the writer at tingduan@chinadailyhk.com

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