Call to check tech trends when drafting policies after basketball betting U-turn

Hong Kong authorities should consider the impact of technological developments when drafting policies, observers have said, noting the government’s decision to halt plans for basketball betting reflected a lack of thorough discussion.Their remarks on Tuesday followed the government announcing the suspension over concerns about new “prediction market” gambling while warning that it was illegal for Hongkongers to bet on sports events on such trading platforms.An amendment bill to the Betting Duty Ordinance was passed in September to empower the Secretary for Home and Youth Affairs to license a basketball betting operator in the city, aiming to tackle illegal gambling.“The development of technology is faster than the pace of legislation. In such a situation, if the government is worried that betting will be easily manipulated by others, halting it is not a bad thing,” former lawmaker Doreen Kong Yuk-foon said.“In future legislative processes, when the government prepares its policy papers, it should include a prediction on [the influence of] technological development, as we do not wish to see such a situation for a second time.”The prediction market refers to a cryptocurrency-based gambling model, where participants can trade “shares” based on the outcome of a specific “yes-or-no event”, such as the results of elections and sports competitions.