World Cup bets offside in Hong Kong

WHOEVER lifts football's World Cup after the final in Japan, it is Britain's bookies who will be the losers in the potentially huge Hong Kong gambling market. Interest in the World Cup is at an all-time high in the region as it is the first time the finals are being played in Asia, and China makes its debut.

But the big bets could be placed with Sun Yee On and Wo Shing Wo - not betting shop chains but triad crime syndicates - because Hong Kong has made it illegal to bet on any event taking place outside the territory, in time for Friday's kick-off.

This may mean tens of millions of US dollars being diverted from big online bookies, such as William Hill, Ladbrokes, and Victor Chandler to underground betting syndicates. Chandler's local manager Murray Burton said: 'This is mad. Only the illegal market will make anything out of this.'

No one knows how the law could be policed, when bets can easily be placed online, by telephone or through relatives living overseas. Bookies have no way of identifying the origin of bets if punters wish to cover their tracks.

'They are really shooting themselves in the foot,' said a spokesperson for William Hill. 'This law cannot be enforced and it would have been much better to have harnessed the betting through the Jockey Club rather than to make it illegal.'

There is great suspicion that the Government is protecting the Jockey Club's huge betting turnover and its own taxes. The Club is one of the most powerful institutions in Hong Kong and controls all horse race betting. Two seasons ago, its turnover fell 2.3% to HK$81.5bn (£7.2bn) and the Government's take dipped a similar amount to some HK$11bn. The season just ended is believed to have seen a similar percentage fall.

Jockey Club chief executive Larry Wong puts some of the blame on the likes of William Hill which takes online bets on races at Happy Valley and Sha Tin. But sporting men in the Hong Kong Club were fuming. 'Do you mean that if I put a bet on my friend's horse at Newmarket, I am a criminal?' asked one irate British banker.