Can You Up Your Chances of Winning the Mark Six?

How do the odds look of you becoming a millionaire overnight? Not good. 

The Mark Six celebrates its 40th anniversary this year. It was originally introduced in 1976, created in order to target the illegal tse fa lottery (字花, literally “word-flower,” in which players had to pick characters instead of numbers). Tse fa had been running for close to a century and was wildly popular—but then the government realized that it could be getting in on the action. And so the Mark Six was born. It was a good idea: Since its inception the Mark Six has raised an almighty $37 billion for the government.

But as no one needs to tell you, the government winning big isn’t the same as Hongkongers cleaning up. The city’s biggest-ever jackpot may have just been split between two tickets, each worth a cool $84.7 million—but the chances of you specifically winning are fantastically low. 

With 49 potential numbers, the chance of correctly picking all six numbers in a single ticket is 1 in 13,983,816. That’s 1 chance in almost 14 million. In fact, you are fully 80 times more likely to be killed by lightning than you are to win the Mark Six jackpot.

Take into account the lower-ranked prizes, from the 2nd to 7th place with its lowly $40 payout, and your chances of winning rise to about 1 in 54. Those are pretty low odds on a global scale: The US Powerball lottery, for instance, delivers a 1 in 35 chance of winning; while the UK’s National Lottery offers a tempting-sounding 1 in 9.3 chance.

The Jockey Club keeps statistics on its website, which include rankings of “lucky” shops and the frequency of numbers appearing. The betting shop on Stanley Street attracted huge queues this week thanks to its reputation as the city’s “luckiest” shop—42 past winners have bought their tickets there. Second-luckiest is the branch in Tuen Mun Town Plaza, with 36 wins.