Gambling on horses to get a trial run, mainland official says
Gambling on horse racing will be permitted on the mainland as soon as 2008, an official from the State Council has said.
Wuhan , capital of the southeastern province of Hubei , was a top choice for a trial run, Liu Zhiren, head of the Counsellors' Office of the State Council said this week at a forum in the city on horse racing.
According to the China News Service, punters on the mainland would be invited to pick the winning horse in a race - a format similar to betting on horse racing in Hong Kong, although authorities prefer the word 'lottery'.
Horse racing thrived on the mainland until the Communist Party came to power in 1949, and was especially popular in wealthy cities like Shanghai. The industry has since withered because the communists outlawed gambling on social and moral grounds.
Racecourses sprouted in cities such as Guangzhou, Wuhan and Nanjing in the 1990s. But most of them were shut down for involvement in gambling.
Scholars have been advocating the legalising of gambling on the mainland because of the potentially huge revenue it could generate. It has been estimated that about 600 billion yuan leaves the mainland each year to be gambled away at offshore casinos and racecourses.
The launching of a master's degree course in lottery management at Peking University last year was seen as a sign of a change in Beijing's attitude towards gambling.
There was strong speculation the government would allow betting on horse races in the run-up to the Olympics. But the optimism wore thin after police closed the Beijing Tongshun Jockey Club - one of the largest in Asia - in 2004 over accusations that it was a venue for gambling.
Mr Liu is the highest-ranking official to have backed a horse-racing lottery. He said it had been placed on the official agenda of 'relevant authorities' after the Hubei provincial government and several National People's Congress delegates submitted a proposal.
Authorities were drafting regulations and upgrading facilities for horse racing, he added.
