To celebrate the 40th anniversary of the Mark Six lottery, The Hong Kong Jockey Club is pleased to announce the Mark Six 40th Anniversary Snowball Draw, which will be held on Tuesday 1 March. The draw will carry the ever-highest Snowball of $75 million and the First Division Prize Fund is estimated to reach $100 million.

Also commemorating 40 years of the Mark Six are four specially commissioned programmes hosted by movie star and singer Julian Cheung (Photo 1, Photo 2). The programmes describe the story of the Mark Six’s launch and development, interesting facts, details of the Mark Six’s community contribution, and the draw process.

The first episode covers the launch of Mark Six and its development.  The Mark Six lottery was introduced in 1976 to combat the illegal lottery called “Che Fa”. A 1 out of 36 game, “Che Fa” was one of the most popular illegal lotteries, dating back to at least the 1870s.  Each of the 36 numbers was represented by a legendary character and pictorial clues were published in newspapers to attract players. 

To combat “Che Fa” and other illegal lottery games, the Government founded the Hong Kong Lotteries Board in 1975 under the Betting Duty Ordinance to conduct licensed lotteries in Hong Kong.  In the same year, the Hong Kong Lotteries Board appointed the Club to operate a lottery on its behalf and the first lottery, a 6 out of 14 lottery game at $10 per entry called “Dor Chung Choy” (Photo 3), was introduced. 

The Mark Six lottery, a 6 out of 36 game (Photo 4) at $2 per entry, was launched one year later in 1976 to replace “Dor Chung Choy”.  Over the years the Mark Six has developed into its current 6 out of 49 format (Photo 5) at $10 per entry and become the most popular legal lottery game in Hong Kong.

The first programme commemorating the 40th Anniversary of the Mark Six is available from today, 16 February on the Anniversary webpage (www.campaign.hkjc.com/marksix40) and at all Off-Course Betting Branches.

* All customers must be aged 18 and above