KUALA LUMPUR, Feb 15 — A man in China who concealed a lottery win from his wife has been ordered by a court to compensate her.

The man, identified by his surname Zhou, bought the ticket in 2021 and won a prize money of 10 million yuan (RM6.4 million), Oddity Central reported.

According to the portal, the man was left with 8.43 million yuan (RM5.4 million) after paying the mandatory taxes.

On the day the money was credited into his account, Zhou transferred two million yuan (RM1.3 million) to his sister and another 700,000 yuan (RM448,549) to his ex-wife so she could buy an apartment.

However, luck was not on Zhou's side when his current wife found out about the lottery win and filed for divorce.

She also sued him for a cut of the prize money as they were married at the time of the win, hence the money is considered common property.

A court in Wenzhou had since decided that the current wife be paid 60 per cent of Zhou's winnings.

The status of the wife's divorce proceedings against Zhou is presently unknown.

Interestingly, this is not the first time a lottery winner concealed their win from their family.

In November, a man donned a bright yellow costume of the lottery's mascot to collect his prize as he wanted to keep it a secret from his wife and children.

He told the media that he was worried that news of his winnings would make them lazy.