29th August 2026 – (Hong Kong) Punters chasing a potentially record Mark Six payday can start buying tickets tonight for the second 50th Anniversary Snowball, which the Hong Kong Jockey Club estimates could deliver a first-division prize of HK$228 million if a single HK$10 unit scoops the lot.
The special draw is fixed for 5th September at 9.30pm. Sales begin as soon as the ordinary draw scheduled for this evening finishes, through off-course betting branches, telephone betting and the Club’s digital platforms. Ticket sales close at 9.15pm on draw night. To give the public more time to take part, the Club is suspending the regular Mark Six draws that would otherwise have been held on 1st and 3rd September.
Organisers have set a snowball of HK$185 million for the anniversary jackpot. Added to the share of that night’s turnover that feeds the first division, the estimated top prize climbs to about HK$228 million for a lone winning unit — a figure matching the headline sum promoted for the first anniversary snowball in May and widely billed as a shot at the highest first-prize payout in Mark Six history.
Mark Six itself turns fifty this year. Launched in 1976, the lottery was introduced to help the government curb illegal gambling, notably the underground game known as Tse Fa. Over five decades it has become both a household ritual and a steady source of public funding: forty per cent of Mark Six turnover is channelled to the Lotteries Fund and lottery betting duty that bankroll social welfare and other community measures.
Across fifty years the Jockey Club says it has paid more than HK$30 billion into the Lotteries Fund and more than HK$55 billion in lottery duty, supporting over three hundred welfare organisations and more than twenty-five thousand social welfare projects.