Hong Kong may legalise basketball betting to tap estimated HK$52.5 billion turnover

Hong Kong’s finance chief is considering raising government revenues by legalising basketball betting as part of measures to tackle the city’s close-to-HK$100 billion (US$12.9 billion) fiscal deficit, the Post has learned.

Two days before Paul Chan Mo-po’s budget speech, an insider confirmed on Monday that authorities could allow the Hong Kong Jockey Club to expand its betting options to cover basketball, which would increase government revenues from betting duties.

The club’s chief executive Winfried Engelbrecht-Bresges said last year in a media interview that there were 100,000 to 150,000 punters using illegal bookmarkers to bet on basketball, and the club could bring up to 60 per cent of them into legal channels if the betting was legalised.

The money involved in illegal sports betting by Hongkongers was about HK$350 billion in 2023, with basketball accounting for 15 per cent of the total, according to Engelbrecht-Bresges.

Legalising basketball gambling could potentially generate a turnover of HK$52.5 billion, close to a third of the total turnover in the club’s football betting in 2023, he added.

Currently, a 50 per cent football betting duty is charged on net receipts derived from authorised betting on matches by a betting conductor.