The return of live racing to the Hong Kong Jockey Club earlier this month resulted in the highest single-day turnover in its history.
News site Inside Asian Gaming reported that total wagers at Sha Tin Racecourse on opening day, September 6, hit HK$1.38 billion (US$180 million), an increase of nearly 7 percent over the previous record set in the 2017-18 season.
Strangely enough, or not so strangely given the times, the meet also saw the lowest attendance in the club’s history, with just 326 people permitted to enter the track because of Covid-19 restrictions.
Despite that, HKJC Chief Executive Winfried Engelbrecht-Bresges said that given the challenges he was relieved to get live racing under way again.
“We had probably the best start we could hope for into the new season, amazing results. We were able to increase turnover despite the fact that we had to close our off-course betting branches for race day.”
He added, “I can only say for all of our team members, to get this season on the road was a lot of hard work, a lot of planning and a lot of things behind the scenes.”
The strong start comes after the club reported an 11.6 percent decline in turnover from all sources for the year ended June 30. The total of HK$218.8 billion ($28.2 billion) reflected significant declines in football and lottery betting.
By contrast, racing turnover was down just 3.2 percent to HK$121 billion ($15.6 billion).
