Hong Kong - Revenue from betting on horse racing, football matches and lottery tickets topped a record 100 billion Hong Kong dollars (12.82 billion US dollars) last season, the Hong Kong Jockey Club said Wednesday. The milestone was achieved despite growing competition from casinos in Macau, a special Chinese administrative region about one hour's ferry ride from Hong Kong.
While posting record receipts, the club - which has a monopoly on legalized betting in the territory - said its race meetings failed to generate the 8 billion Hong Kong dollars it had guaranteed would be earmarked for charitable causes.
The shortfall of 119 million Hong Kong dollars would have to be made up come from the club's reserves.
The club said the target could have easily been met if the government had allowed one additional race meeting.
Aside from operating one of the world's largest horse racing organizations, the club is also one of Hong Kong's biggest charitable institutions, contributing money to drug rehabilitation and other social welfare programmes.
