What's your lucky number? Mark Six works miracles for some poor people

Updated: 2014-01-13 06:40

By Albert Lin(HK Edition)

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What's your lucky number? Mark Six works miracles for some poor people

If there's one factor about life in Hong Kong that puts all of us on the same level, it's the Mark Six lottery that three times a week has hundreds of thousands glued to their TV sets at 9:30 pm for the regular draw. And if there's a mammoth snowball or a juicy jackpot at stake, audience for the draw will go way over the million-mark.

There is truly a dash of excitement for viewers as the transparent machine involved furiously stirs all the numbered and colored balls before the first of the six drawn numbers makes its much-awaited appearance, and the procedure continues until the drawing of the seventh ball, which is the extra number.

And in just a few minutes some lucky ticket-holder has become a multi-millionaire whose life would be changed forever.

It is perhaps a great pity that the Jockey Club, which is responsible for the operation of the lottery, is so close-lipped about the winners. Presumably they would represent a wonderful cross-section of our population.

For example, it seems highly likely that working-class families living in public housing are occasionally the beneficiaries of the Mark Six's magic touch of good fortune. Do they buy a luxury flat and move out to make way for another needy family, or perhaps migrate to Canada with their mouth-watering nest-egg? Or, if strong, silent types, do they stay put, thriftily investing in a flat or two in the private sector the rents from which will ensure them ongoing financial security?

Then there are the Filipina domestics often to be seen ducking in and out of the local Jockey Club betting shop, better known as TAB (Totalisator Agency Board), trying their luck with the Mark Six. What an overwhelming difference to their lives a win would bring, completely transforming the situation for their families back home in some dusty village!

There is no set pattern for how people react when they suddenly come into what seem to be immeasurably large amounts of money. The young seem to have a wish list of luxury items - with extra-fast sports cars No 1 on the list for spirited young men, or a shopping spree in haute couture stores No 1 priority for lucky little ladies.

Meanwhile, I have been told of one Mark Six winner of three or so years back whose story has a genuinely feel-good touch about it. He had been a heavy smoker and, following an operation for throat cancer that involved removal of his vocal chords, spoke very hoarsely through a hole in his throat, using wind from his stomach. On top of this he had suffered from a badly broken leg in a workplace accident, and limped around slowly using a walking stick.

He and his family had lived for years in a rented old fifth-floor flat in a tenement building in Western that did not have a lift, and it took him at least 20 minutes to climb the steps every time he returned home. He also had to take great care when descending the steps as there were no handrails.

His wife had worked since girlhood as a dish-washer in a nearby restaurant, and many years' insertion of her hands in soapy, dirty water had turned their surface into a rough sort of inhuman "leather".

Within days of collecting his prize this previously luckless soul had bought a three-bedroom flat on the first floor of a modern block of flats in the neighborhood that had three separate lifts, and where for the first time in his life their teenage son had his own bedroom.

Additionally, his wife left her job in the scullery and was seeing a skin specialist about her hands.

I am sure you will join me in wishing that the Mark Six works many similar "miracles" in future.

The author is Op-Ed editor of China Daily Hong Kong Edition. albertlin@chinadailyhk.com

(HK Edition 01/13/2014 page9)