Football Betting in Hong Kong

Football is the biggest betting sport in Hong Kong, and it all runs through one operator: the Hong Kong Jockey Club. If you want to bet on a match, you do it through the Club's branches, its phone services or its online channels, in Hong Kong dollars, on the matches it has approved. This page walks through what there is to bet on, how the main bet types work, what they pay, and the practical rules around refunds and machines.

The Hong Kong Jockey Club: the only licensed operator

The Hong Kong Jockey Club is the sole operator authorized by the government to provide horse racing and football betting in Hong Kong, and it also runs the Mark Six lottery on the government's behalf¹. Its football product, HKJC Football, is the only legal football betting channel in the territory².

The Club offers two kinds of football betting: fixed odds and pari-mutuel, on selected overseas matches¹. In line with its license conditions, its betting services are limited to horse racing, Mark Six and football⁷. Football and horse racing are the only two sports anyone in Hong Kong can bet on legally, whether you are a resident or a visitor⁸. The government has proposed adding basketball under the same single-operator model, with the Jockey Club as the sole licensee, but that remains a proposal rather than a running service⁹.

One point worth knowing as a practical matter: betting with any other operator, including offshore websites, is not permitted in Hong Kong, so the Club's channels are the only ones you can use without legal risk. For the wider picture, see our page on gambling in Hong Kong.

Bet channels: outlets, phone and online

You can place football bets through several channels, all run by the Club:

• Off-Course Betting Branches (OCBBs): a network of betting shops around Hong Kong, where you can also get match information²
• Mobile betting app: available for iPhone, iPad, Android phones and Windows phones¹⁰
• Online betting service: the Club's web betting platform¹⁰
• Telephone betting service: live phone betting¹⁰
• 1886 automated telephone betting system: a self-service phone line¹⁰

Payment is straightforward: you can bet with cash, cash coupons or a betting account⁴. There is no credit of any kind. The Club provides cash betting and account-based betting only, and no credit facilities or credit card betting are allowed⁷. This restriction goes back to the original design of the license, which barred credit and credit card settlement from the start¹¹.

Football bet types: from match result to Tournament Bets

The Club's football menu covers a wide range of bet types, grouped into fixed odds bets and pari-mutuel bets⁶. The license allows fixed odds and pari-mutuel betting on the results and progress of major professional leagues, international tournaments and international matches¹².

The most common bets are on the outcome of a single match: home win, draw or away win, plus markets such as Handicap, where the payout is based on the full-time result adjusted by the handicap line, not the score at the moment you bet¹³. Correct Score, covered in detail below, is a bet on the exact full-time score¹⁵.

Beyond single matches, Tournament Bets let you bet on outcomes across a whole competition. The operator may offer bets on designated tournament items or outcomes such as outright winner, group winner, group first and second, final pairing, the number of titles a team wins, winning continent, winning country, promotion, relegation, qualification and last place¹⁶.

In-play betting is available on designated matches while they are running. Odds move with the state of play: for example, a Correct Score price of 8.50 on West Ham 2:0 before kickoff can shift to 9.00 once West Ham lead 1:0¹⁸. In-play markets include total goals, next goalscorer, anytime goalscorer, handicap and half/full-time results¹³. During extra time, the in-play score is reset to 0:0¹³.

A few settlement rules apply across the board. The referee's official score announced immediately after the match is the final result for full-time bets; the half-time score applies to half-time bets and the extra-time score to extra-time bets⁴. If a match is declared void, single bets are refunded and affected accumulator legs are treated as successful¹⁹. And once a valid bet is placed, you cannot withdraw it, nor can you make alterations on a physical betting ticket⁴.

Correct Score: outcomes and settlement

Correct Score (known locally as "bo dam") is a bet on the full-time score of a match¹⁵. The selections on offer are:

The "Others" selections catch the scorelines outside the listed range, and they are split by whether the losing side scored at all, because the odds differ a lot between them²⁰.

Settlement is on the full-time result in normal playing time, excluding extra time and penalty shootouts²⁰. A separate Extra Time Correct Score market is settled on the score of the extra time period alone, after regulation time ends¹⁵.

You can also combine Correct Score selections across matches in a multiple, betting on the full-time score of up to six matches. A 3 x 1 multiple is one bet through three legs; a 3 x 7 multiple is seven bets, made up of three singles, three doubles and one treble¹⁵.

What a $100 Correct Score pays

Here is how the payouts work, using the Club's own example odds for a HKD 100 stake²⁰:

Payouts include your stake, so a HKD 100 bet at 7.50 returns HKD 750 in total. The long-shot "Others" selections pay the most, with the away-side blowouts carrying the highest odds in this example set²⁰.

For multiples, the odds multiply through the legs. The Club's example is a 3 x 1 multiple with HKD 100 per bet on legs at 9.50, 15.00 and 6.50, which pays HKD 92,625 (HKD 100 x 9.50 x 15.00 x 6.50)¹⁵.

Winnings on each winning fixed odds bet are calculated to the nearest 10 cents, up or down¹⁵.

Tournament Bets: refunds and withdrawal rules

Tournament Bets have their own refund rules, and they differ depending on whether your bet involves one tournament or several.

If a tournament is canceled or terminated, all unsettled Tournament Bets on that tournament are refunded¹⁶.

If a tournament is postponed, the operator may, at its discretion, refund all Tournament Bets related to it. This is a discretion, not an automatic refund²¹.

If a team withdraws from a single-tournament bet:

• Withdrawn before taking part in any matches: all Tournament Bets involving that team are refunded²¹
• Withdrawn after taking part in any matches: all Tournament Bets involving that team are treated as losses²¹

For bets involving more than one tournament, if a team is withdrawn from any of the relevant tournaments, all unresolved Tournament Bets involving that team are refunded, whether or not the team played²¹.

Player-specific Tournament Bets are refunded if the player did not enter the field of play in any of the tournament matches, including extra time and penalty shootouts²¹.

One more rule worth knowing: once the operator has started paying out dividends, any subsequent amendment to the official tournament records is ignored for payment purposes¹⁷.

Currency and payout limits: HKD and HKD 1,000,000 per single bet

All football bets must be made and settled in Hong Kong currency⁴. This applies to every bet through every channel, so if you are visiting from abroad, plan on HKD.

On payouts, a single football bet has a maximum payout of HKD 1,000,000³. Beyond that headline cap, the operator may set maximum or minimum unit bet amounts, total bet amounts and maximum payouts per ticket, per bet, per bet type and per betting day, and may amend these limits without notice⁴. So the practical ceiling on any single bet is HKD 1,000,000, and lower limits can apply to specific bet types or days.

Known problems with self-service machines and refunds

Two practical issues have come up with the Club's machines over the years, and they are worth knowing before you use a self-service terminal.

The first is oversized bets. When the HKD 1,000,000 single-bet payout cap was in place, the Club's self-service ticket machines accepted bets above the cap without any warning, and when a winning bet exceeded the limit, the Club refused to refund the excess stake it had collected⁸. The lesson: check your stake against the payout cap yourself, because the machine may not stop you.

The second is system outages. In one incident in March 2018, counter betting machines and self-service betting machines at affected branches stopped working entirely, unable to accept bets or pay out²². If a machine fails while you are mid-transaction, the rules say that where a bet fails to be recorded due to facility interference or failure, or a valid bet becomes unidentifiable due to later failure or damage, the operator's liability, if any, is limited to a refund of the stake collected⁴. Keep your ticket until your bet is settled.

More generally, if the operator terminates a bet type, selection or pool, all valid bets in it are refunded in full, and the operator has no further liability beyond that refund⁴.

Staying in control

The Club offers a Voluntary Account Betting Self-exclusion Service for betting account holders who want to manage their gambling, and it may also limit how often a Betting Account Holder can use a Customer Input Terminal and the amounts involved in any transaction on any day or period²³. Betting premises and websites are required to display notices about the seriousness of problem gambling and where to find help in Hong Kong.

If you want the wider picture of what is and is not available, see our pages on sports betting in Hong Kong and gambling help in Hong Kong.