1st November 2026 – (Hong Kong) A Hong Kong woman matched every main number in Saturday’s Halloween Snowball draw — an HK$80 million jackpot — yet walked away with only 80 dollars because the six hits sat on two separate entries, not one.
The draw, marked 26/116 and held on 31st October, produced 10, 11, 19, 27, 37 and 43, with special number 8. Nobody scooped the first prize. Second prize paid 716,830 dollars on each of 9.5 winning units, while third prize returned 57,280 dollars on each of 317 units.
Posting on Threads under the handle vaneeispigian, the woman shared a photograph of a physical Hong Kong Jockey Club slip bought for HK$40 covering four single computer-random entries. Across that one piece of paper, the six jackpot numbers did appear in full — but they were split between two different lines rather than locked into a single six-number combination.
Mark Six pays each single entry on its own. Numbers from neighbouring bets on the same ticket cannot be merged to create a first-prize line. Each of her two relevant entries hit three correct numbers, which scores seventh prize at 40 dollars a unit, so she left with 80 dollars in total after spending 40.
She wrote that heaven seemed to be treating her roughly and that she had brushed past the jackpot — so near, yet so far. The post spread quickly among local lottery watchers, who argued the outcome still counted as a mild stroke of luck rather than a total wipeout.
Online replies struck a bracing note. Some called the dual seventh prizes impressive for random computer picks. Others said collecting any cash beat a total loss, noted the lucky 80 dollars from two consolation units, and urged her to try again when the next pool climbs toward 100 million.
Jockey Club rules help explain why such near-misses feel commoner than the jackpot itself. First prize requires matching all six numbers on one entry from 49, at odds of about one in 13.98 million. When several computer-random lines are printed on one slip, each line is drawn independently. Landing three correct numbers on each of two separate bets is mathematically far more likely than packing all six onto a single line — yet payouts still treat those hits as two seventh prizes, not one first.
