The Hong Kong Jockey Club (HKJC) has reportedly invested around HK$1 billion ($127.7 million) in preparations for basketball betting, including system development and infrastructure, even as the Hong Kong government has suspended the rollout, according to Hong Kong media HK01.
The betting service had been projected to launch as early as September this year before the sudden policy shift.
The investment includes HK$400 million ($51.1 million) already spent on building a dedicated basketball betting system, designed to match the sophistication of the Hong Kong stock exchange’s trading platform, with a further HK$600 million ($76.6 million) set to be deployed next month for supporting infrastructure.
Despite the progress, the Home and Youth Affairs Bureau announced on April 13th that it would suspend the implementation of basketball betting. The move aims to allow further study of “prediction markets,” particularly those driven by cryptocurrency, and their potential impact on gambling activities. The timeline for any potential restart remains unclear.
The Jockey Club had also recruited about 180 employees to support the initiative, many of them specialists in areas such as odds-making, with around half sourced from overseas. Sources indicated that the operator intends to retain as many of these staff as possible while awaiting the outcome of the government’s review.
If approval is eventually granted, the Jockey Club could be in a position to launch basketball betting within three to six months, with the earliest possible timeline estimated at around three months. This would still allow sufficient preparation time ahead of the new National Basketball Association (NBA) season, which begins in October.
The project had been supported by earlier policy developments. In February last year, Financial Secretary Paul Chan Mo-po signaled support for legalizing basketball betting, followed by a public consultation. The Legislative Council subsequently passed the Betting Duty (Amendment) Bill 2025 in September, laying the groundwork for a licensing framework modeled on existing horse racing and football betting operations.
The Jockey Club previously estimated that legal basketball betting could capture 30 to 40 percent of the illegal market, which is believed to involve nearly HK$100 billion ($12.8 billion) annually. This would translate into around HK$30 billion ($3.8 billion) in turnover and generate approximately HK$1.5 billion ($191.6 million) in tax revenue for the government each year.
Separately, for the 2024/25 fiscal year ending June 30th, 2025, the Jockey Club paid a total of HK$28.8 billion ($3.7 billion) in betting duties and profits tax, including an additional HK$2.4 billion ($306.5 million) annual football betting tax introduced in the prior fiscal year.
