Today, marks the start of the Year of the Fire Horse, the first since 1966. A zodiac year that symbolises energy, freedom, momentum and bold action. For someone who writes about the business of sport every single day, there’s no better way to kick off this piece than by talking about what’s happening right here on my doorstep in Hong Kong, and one of the most extraordinary institutions in world sport that most of my readers have probably never heard of.

I want to talk about the Hong Kong Jockey Club. The races. The money. The infrastructure. And what this organisation tells us about the untapped power of sport as an economic and social engine.

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Let me break this down simply, because this is one of the most underrated organisations in global sport.

The Hong Kong Jockey Club, or HKJC, was founded in 1884, making it more than 140 years old. It started as a members’ club for British colonials to organise horse racing. Today, it has evolved into something completely unique. A not-for-profit organisation that holds a government-granted monopoly on all legal betting in Hong Kong, including horse racing, football betting and the Mark Six lottery. That is it. There are no casinos in Hong Kong. No private bookmakers. No licensed online sportsbooks. If you want to place a legal bet in this city, it goes through the Jockey Club.

And here is where it gets staggering for anyone in the sports business world. In the financial year ending June 2025, HKJC’s total betting and lottery turnover was circa HK$320 billion, generating circa HK$49 billion in revenue.

But if you stop the story at betting and racing, you miss what really sets HKJC apart. Its entire model is built around taking that scale and pushing it back into sport and the wider community.

Because HKJC is not-for-profit, every dollar of surplus goes back into society.

In 2024/25, the Club contributed a record HK$39.1 billion back to the community. That breaks down roughly as:

The HKJC Charities Trust has been ranked among the world’s leading charity donors and among the largest corporate givers globally. Over the past decade, the Trust has donated on average more than HK$5 billion per year to the community, across sports, health, education, arts and culture, and social services.

Now to the product itself. The racing.

Hong Kong has two racecourses, and both are iconic. Happy Valley Racecourse sits on Hong Kong Island, in the district of Happy Valley, squeezed into a natural amphitheatre surrounded by skyscrapers, and has hosted racing since the mid‑1800s. The area was originally swampland that was reclaimed to create a track, and it has been a racing venue for around 180 years. I live in Happy Valley and it is my favourite place on the island, surrounded by sport, fitness and an outstanding community; in Cantonese it is pronounced “paau máh deih” and literally translates as “horse racing ground” or “place for running horses.”

If you have never experienced a Wednesday night at Happy Valley, it is one of the great sporting experiences in the world. The “Happy Wednesday” brand is well known locally, with races run under floodlights, live music, themed parties, food trucks, bars and a buzzing beer garden beside the track. Night racing began there in 1973, and since then it has become a midweek ritual for tourists, expats and locals.

Then there is Sha Tin Racecourse in the New Territories, which opened in 1978 and is the larger, more modern venue. This is where the major international meetings happen, including the Hong Kong International Races in December, which bring together elite horses from around the world for multiple Group 1 races. Several of Hong Kong’s Group 1 races are consistently ranked among the world’s top‑rated contests on turf.

The Jockey Club is in the middle of a long‑term master plan to upgrade both venues, with new grandstands, digital experiences and fan‑engagement zones. Recent projects at Sha Tin include new facilities designed to improve both the spectator experience and the operational side of racing.

This is where the HKJC business model becomes especially interesting from a sports investing perspective.

The Club operates World Pool, a global commingling platform that allows bettors from dozens of jurisdictions to bet into a single pool on major international race meetings. It began around Royal Ascot and has expanded to include major fixtures in the UK, Ireland, Dubai and elsewhere. In 2025, World Pool turnover on overseas races reached circa US$1.19 billion.

In 2024/25, commingled turnover on Hong Kong racing rose to circa HK$32 billion, accounting for roughly a quarter of total racing turnover. The Club has approval to increase the number of World Pool race days further in the next few seasons. The ambition is clear, make Hong Kong the central hub for global betting on the world’s top races.

This should be grabbing every sports investor’s attention in 2026.

The HKJC’s Conghua Racecourse is located in Guangdong Province, roughly 150 kilometres north of Hong Kong, and covers about 150 hectares. It was originally built for the equestrian events of the Guangzhou 2010 Asian Games, then redeveloped by the Jockey Club as a world‑class training and racing centre. A significant share of Hong Kong‑based horses are now trained or spelled there before racing at Sha Tin or Happy Valley.

The Club has announced plans to stage its first official race meeting at Conghua in October 2026, described as the launch of “world‑class racing” in mainland China. This aligns with China’s broader equine industry development plans and opens a pathway for deeper cross‑border integration in racing and sports entertainment more broadly.

In 2024/25, the Jockey Club welcomed almost 200,000 visitors from mainland China to its Hong Kong racecourses, more than doubling the previous year. For anyone looking at market size, the Greater Bay Area, which includes Hong Kong, Macau and nine cities in Guangdong, has a population of over 80 million people. Conghua sits right in that catchment.

Here is the piece that often gets overlooked when people outside Hong Kong talk about this organisation, its wider role in sport.

Through its Charities Trust and Sports & Community Development arm, the HKJC has spent decades funding football grounds, swimming pools, tennis courts and public sports facilities across the city. It helped rebuild Hong Kong Stadium and backed the Jockey Club HKFA Football Training Centre in Tseung Kwan O, giving local football a proper base.

In football, the Club works with Manchester United, the Football Association of Hong Kong, China and NGO partners on the JC Youth Football Development Programme, and supports football for elderly and underprivileged groups through community and “street soccer” projects.

Basketball is now a headline focus. Over just the last decade, the Charities Trust has committed HK$6.69 billion to sports development, and in 2025 the Club announced HK$3 billion more for sport over the next three years, including HK$70.75 million for the Jockey Club Believe & Bounce Basketball Programme. That three‑year programme, run with InspiringHK Sports Foundation, BGCA and HKFYG, is expected to reach over 32,000 young people and more than 660 coaches, using tailor‑made training, 3x3 projects, inter‑school competitions and career‑pathway workshops to make basketball accessible for underprivileged youth. The Club has also funded upgrades at Southorn Stadium so Hong Kong can host more high‑level and international basketball events.

At a city‑wide level, projects like JC Fit City use low‑barrier sports activities, community contests and events to get more Hongkongers moving, treating sport as a public‑health tool rather than just entertainment.

The HKJC also backs major events through “M” Mark partnerships such as the Hong Kong Sevens, Volleyball Nations League and Hong Kong Open Badminton Championships, while in mainland China it has funded sports parks in Conghua, Huizhou, Meizhou and Zhaoqing. At the elite end, it has committed hundreds of millions of Hong Kong dollars to support Hong Kong’s role in the 15th National Games, National Games for Persons with Disabilities and National Special Olympic Games.

With tens of thousands of full‑time and part‑time employees, the Jockey Club is one of Hong Kong’s largest employers. It has been recognised as a highly attractive employer in the city and operates its own internal college focused on staff training and development. The organisation invests in long‑term skills and career pathways, which is not always the case in the sports and betting industry.

So what does all of this mean if you are following the business of sport?

The Hong Kong Jockey Club shows what can happen when you build a vertically integrated sports and betting ecosystem tied directly to community impact. It operates venues, runs the sport, manages the betting, controls key parts of the entertainment experience, builds global betting infrastructure and then recycles its surpluses back into hospitals, schools, football pitches, swimming pools, basketball courts and large‑scale sports events.

It is the largest taxpayer in its market, one of the biggest charitable contributors in the world, and now a serious partner in national‑level events across the Greater Bay Area and mainland China. That combination of commercial scale and social return is rare.

As the Year of the Fire Horse begins, the symbolism fits. The HKJC is entering a new phase, expanding its global footprint, deepening its digital and commingling infrastructure and stepping more directly into mainland China through Conghua, while at the same time funding the next generation of pitches, courts and community sports programmes across the region.

For those of us who live and work in this space, this is a cool story.

Gung Hei Fat Choi. Here is to the Year of the Horse.