26th October 2026 – (Hong Kong) Fourteen Food and Environmental Hygiene Department colleagues have sued a fellow officer in the High Court for HK$28.91 million, alleging he kept a shared Mark Six jackpot of about HK$33.12 million after their office pool struck lucky.
The claim is a fresh turn in a case in which FEHD staff pooled money for Mark Six tickets and, after a win, one man was arrested for allegedly pocketing the prize. The 14 plaintiffs include Mr. Pau Chung On, a senior superintendent in the department. The defendant is Mr. Ling Chun Ting.
According to the writ, Pau first suggested a joint Mark Six buy-in around April this year to build team spirit. Fifteen people put money in. In September they again pooled HK$1,650 for a fresh stake, with individual contributions ranging from HK$20 to HK$300. Ling put in HK$210 and bought two tickets — half-unit banker bets of three bankers with 10 other numbers and three bankers with 11 — then sent WhatsApp screenshots of the purchases.
When the draw paid out about HK$33.12 million, a split in proportion to each stake would have left Ling with roughly HK$4.21 million and the rest for the others. The writ says that after the results he deleted the screenshots and, two days later in the office, remarked that he could choose not to share with them. The plaintiffs put a formal demand for a share-out to him; he did not reply. They now ask the court to stop him using the prize money and to order the return of HK$28.91 million.
Office lottery pools often rest on little more than chat screenshots and trust that the colleague who walks to the ticket counter will treat the ticket as common property. Here the figures set out in the pleading are stark: a modest HK$1,650 syndicate, a jackpot counted in tens of millions, a defendant’s notional slice of about HK$4.21 million, and a claim for nearly HK$29 million said to belong to the other fourteen. Pau’s April pitch — bonding through a shared flutter — has become a High Court fight over whether WhatsApp proof and proportional maths still bind once the winning numbers are drawn.
The writ does not, in the published summary, settle the parallel criminal track beyond noting the earlier arrest for allegedly swallowing the pot. What it does seek is urgent civil relief: a freeze on moving the winnings, and repayment of the HK$28.91 million the plaintiffs say is theirs once Ling’s proportional cut is set aside. Until the High Court rules, the Mark Six windfall that began as a FEHD team-building flutter remains locked in dispute — half a unit of luck, a deleted screenshot trail, and fourteen names on a claim form chasing nearly twenty-nine million dollars back from a colleague who, they say, told them he need not share at all.