Overseas bookmakers, outlawed in Hong Kong six months ago, say they expect football gambling run by the Jockey Club to give punters an alternative to the underground market - and are hoping for a slice of the action.
They say that while the Jockey Club is well-placed to sate Hong Kong's growing appetite for football gambling, a complex range of betting options will be needed to tempt punters away from the excitement offered by illegal bookmakers.
Gibraltar-based Victor Chandler Worldwide is lobbying the Jockey Club for a shared role in running football betting.
The company's Hong Kong-based Asia representative, Murray Burton, said: 'You will always have an underground market in Hong Kong - it's part of the infrastructure - but you can make some serious inroads into it.
'In order to do that, you have to make a wide range of betting products available to the would-be punter. If it is a very limited form of betting opportunity they won't find it exciting enough.'
Mr Burton said Hong Kong's gamblers were passionate about the sport and, like punters elsewhere, would prefer to bet with a legal bookmaker as they wanted to be sure they would get paid.
