So important is horseracing to Hong Kong life that Deng Xiaoping once reassured the population that “the horses will still run” as the UK prepared to hand over sovereignty of the territory to China. For those crammed into the Happy Valley stadium every race night since 1997, the late Chinese leader has been true to his word.
Compact, noisy and filled with thousands of punters squeezed around the floodlit track, horseracing at Happy Valley is at the heart of Hong Kong island. It is also at the heart of the Hong Kong Jockey Club, the colonial-era institution whose members make up the city’s business and political elite, and which holds a government-granted gambling monopoly in the city.
In the year to June 2017 that monopoly generated revenues of nearly HK$34bn ($4.3bn) on record betting turnover of more than HK$216bn — that is almost HK$30,000 gambled for every man, woman and child in the city. The monopoly is justified on the grounds that the club’s charity arm redistributes some of its profits to good causes — part of a deal dating back to 1952.