Mark Six

Mark Six (Chinese: 六合彩) is a lottery betting organised by the Hong Kong Jockey Club.

Mark Six is a lottery style game where players guess what numbers will be drawn out of a lottery machine. The lottery machine is a transparent plastic cylinder which contains coloured Red, Blue and Green balls with numbers 1 to 49. The cylinder is rotated to provide randomisation in the drawing process. Each drawing occurs on 9:30PM (Hong Kong Time) every Tuesday, Thursday, and Sunday(or Sataurday if horse races occurs on Sunday), while bets are accepted until 15 minutes prior to the drawing.

Players choose six numbers or more at Jockey Club website or betting station out of a possible 49. Each selection of the numbers costs 10 HKD and is one selection of the results of the lottery draw. In the draw, 7 numbers are drawn. The first six numbers drawn are called the "drawn numbers". The last one drawn is called the "extra number". Often, in Cantonese this number is called a 'half number'.

As of 2011^[update], prizes are awarded as follows:

The payout for the 1st – 3rd division prizes depend on the sales of that draw, and the presence of Jackpots and Snowball (see below). The prize pool for the 1st prize is guaranteed to be at least HK$8 million. Where there are multiple winners for a division, the prize is shared.

The lower order prizes are fixed as shown below:

If nobody wins the 1st and 2nd prizes, the money that would have been paid out for the prizes will be added to a Jackpot (多寶獎) in the next draw. If there are winners of the first prize, these winners take the jackpot fund as well. If again there is no winner, the process continues until there is, and in such cases 1st division winnings can build up to about HKD$100 million (compared to the normal HKD$8 million 1st division prize), as seen several times in 2004, 2005, 2016.

For each draw, a certain percentage (see below for details) of the entry money is deducted and placed into a Snowball Pool. On selected draws, the Snowball Pool is added to the 1st division prize as well. These draws are known as Snowball Draws (金多寶). The HKJC decides which draws are snowball draws. Usually the date is chosen to match a public holiday or festival, and the draw is named accordingly.

For example:

These draws are very popular due to their large 1st division prizes.

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