In the five years since the breakthrough tax restructuring that allowed the Jockey Club to offer rebates to punters and take more action to fight illegal betting operators, everything the club forecast in lobbying for those changes has happened.
A decade-long downward drift in turnover was arrested and turned around again, and the club has fought back against competitive legal rivals in the new Macau casinos, and the illegal bookmakers.
Betting turnover this season was back above HK$80 billion for the first time in 10 years, a rise of 6.5 per cent year on year, but a more telling lift of 25 per cent in the five years since the tax restructuring.
In the same five years, that makes a HK$1.7 billion per annum rise in duty paid to the government, which now sits at HK$9.6 billion.
Which is why Hong Kong Jockey Club chief executive Winfried Engelbrecht-Bresges remains nonplussed over the ongoing battle to gain more flexibility in its business.
'Our major challenge is a strict regulatory framework that is holding us back - everywhere else in the world, there has been liberalisation of gaming. Against the worldwide trend, we have increased turnover and shown the interest that exists in racing, but with political assistance we can do even better,' Engelbrecht-Bresges said. 'And with our not-for-profit model, the duty we pay and the contributions to charity, the government and the community are ultimately the beneficiaries of any assistance we receive.'