Jockey Club calls for offensive against offshore bookies

The Hong Kong Jockey Club yesterday renewed its call for government action to counter 'aggressive and well-funded attacks on Hong Kong betting revenues' from offshore bookmakers. The Club said urgent action was necessary to adopt the amendments to the existing Gambling Ordinance or the Hong Kong community would be left 'vulnerable to unlimited, unregulated and uncontrolled gambling'.

The call came in response to the news that William Hill, one of the world's biggest bookmaking firms, is now offering fixed-odds betting on Hong Kong racing on its Web site. The British-based firm, which bet for the first time at Sha Tin on Sunday, is one of at least four Internet operators betting on Hong Kong racing.

In a statement, the Club said: 'This is not the first time unauthorised offshore or illegal bookmakers have challenged Hong Kong. The grey areas that exist in the current Gambling Ordinance are being exploited by these and other operators to the detriment of the Hong Kong community. During a time of economic downturn, Hong Kong must do whatever is required to protect its community assets. The revenue generated by regulated gambling supports many charitable activities while helping to preserve Hong Kong's low tax rates. This resource is at risk. We sincerely hope the current review of the Gambling (Amendment) Bill 2000 can be completed soon.'

Under the existing Gambling Ordinance, SAR punters can bet only on horse racing and the Mark Six lottery through the Jockey Club. All other forms of betting, including placing bets locally on overseas events, are illegal. But the ordinance cannot effectively stop offshore gambling because bookmakers based overseas cannot be prosecuted and the amendment includes several methods of closing this loophole. The Club's statement was unsigned and senior officials could not be contacted for further policy comment on the issue. The Jockey Club paid $12.48 billion in betting duty and profits tax for the 2000-01 financial year - accounting for 10 per cent of Government tax revenue - and contributed more than $1 billion to charity.

However, Henry Chan, the Club's director of betting, said: 'We know of four operators who are betting on Hong Kong racing via the Internet, but there may be others that are not quite so active yet. We can only guess at what these operators are turning over on Hong Kong racing, but the four active firms are being quite aggressive in their marketing and especially in offering their clients bonuses on top of our dividends.'

The active operators are Australia's Darwin All Sports and Centreracing, Antigua-based Easybets and now William Hill. The statement added: 'These organisations are operating in clear violation of the Hong Kong Government's gambling policy, which is to restrict betting operations to controlled and authorised gambling outlets. Illegal and unauthorised offshore bookmakers contributed nothing to the community and they siphoned off betting dollars that would have otherwise generated valuable community assets through the regulated pool.'