Why Hong Kong is hitting pause on basketball betting

Many Hongkongers would have been surprised last week that the government was postponing the introduction of basketball betting. It was only months ago that the bill had been enacted by the Legislative Council. So clearly it was a matter that fell within our high degree of autonomy. And the Hong Kong Jockey Club was known to be hard at work preparing for implementation.But listeners to RTHK’s Backchat programme in early February may have come away with an inkling that all might not be well. Experts on the show had explained how the rapid growth of prediction market platforms in the United States overlapped with gambling operations, particularly in sports betting. Whereas gambling operations are regulated, as indeed they are in Hong Kong where the Jockey Club has a monopoly, prediction platforms operate in a grey area.Until we work out how to address this new threat to clean sport, it is probably best to pause for breath. Because the real problem here is not so much gambling as the corruption that pervades all too many sports. Unregulated betting can make available huge sums sufficient to tempt all but the most upright citizen. Once corruption takes hold, the merits of sport itself are undermined.