Bumper jackpot shared as Mark Six lottery fever grips Hong Kong
No single winner of bumper HK$124 million first-prize pool as 2.5 tickets share payout
It could have been the biggest win ever on Mark Six for one lucky punter last night, but instead 2.5 tickets won the first prize of HK$49,591,870.
The numbers drawn were 2, 13, 33, 35, 38 and 49. The extra number was 40. The second prize of HK$1,177,230 was won by 11.5 tickets, and third paid HK$71,480.
Since there was no first prize winner for the Mid-Autumn Festival Snowball draw on Tuesday night, a jackpot of more than HK$83 million was carried forward to the draw last night. If there was only one HK$10 winning unit for the first prize, the payout was estimated to reach HK$124 million, but it was not to be.
Mark Six fever swept the city yesterday as queues of people stretched out of Jockey Club betting branches hoping to hit the jackpot. At the office on Hennessy Road in Wan Chai, accountant Joseph Yiu had never won on the Mark Six but that wasn't going to stop him. "You only have to get lucky once, especially on a night like this," he said.
Student Emily Cheung, 20, had to be shown by staff how to fill her coupon in as she had never done it before. "I don't normally gamble but everyone is doing it tonight so why not?" she said.
As early as 1870, there were illegal lotteries in operation in Hong Kong. The most popular was called che fa, described as a "one-out-of-36" daily game.