History of Gambling in Hong Kong

Mahjong's origins in China

Mahjong is a tile-based game of skill, strategy and luck that originated in 19th century China¹. The strongest traditions point to the Ningpo area of China as its birthplace², while other accounts place its creation around Shanghai in the mid- to late 1800s⁴. Either way, the game emerged in the final decades of the Qing dynasty, in the prosperous commercial cities of eastern China where merchants, officials and sailors had both the money and the leisure to play.

The game that spread from there was not quite the game we know by name. The word "Mahjong" itself is a Western invention: the term was coined by Joseph P. Babcock, an American businessman, around 1920 when he began exporting the game to the United States⁷. Before that, the game existed under various Chinese names, and the tile sets varied from region to region. Babcock simplified the rules for American players, gave the game a trademarked English name, and in doing so fixed in the Western mind a single "mahjong" where China had known many local variants⁷.

The game reached Hong Kong during the Qing dynasty, carried by traders and migrants along the coastal routes that connected Shanghai, Ningpo, Guangdong and the British colony⁸. Hong Kong took to it immediately. The city's Cantonese-speaking population already had a deep culture of card and tile games, and mahjong fitted neatly into family life, teahouse culture and festival gatherings. A typical game can last more than two hours, which made it a natural centerpiece for long evenings with relatives or friends⁸.

One later wave added a local twist. Vietnamese mahjong, a distinct style, was introduced to Hong Kong by overseas Chinese returning from Vietnam, adding one more variant to the city's already crowded mahjong landscape⁹.

How the colony handled gambling

Gambling was part of everyday life in 19th century Hong Kong, and for a time the colonial government simply regulated it rather than suppressed it. On July 1, 1867, the Governor passed an ordinance giving the police power to license gambling houses, with gaming licenses granted through open tender³. In other words, the colony ran gambling as a licensed business, taxing and controlling it through the police rather than banning it outright.

That permissive era did not last. Over the following decades the colonial government shifted from licensing to prohibition, pushing gambling into the background of public life. But the appetite did not go away. It moved into private homes, mahjong parlors, and informal networks, which is where much of it stayed for the first half of the 20th century.

The turning point toward today's system came with horse racing. The Hong Kong Jockey Club, founded in the 19th century, grew into the colony's single legal betting outlet, and the government built its modern gambling policy around it. The key milestones look like this:

Football betting came later, completing the trio of Jockey Club products that still defines legal gambling in the city.

For more detail on the current rules, see gambling laws in Hong Kong.

Setbacks during the Cultural Revolution

While Hong Kong's gambling culture was settling into its modern shape, the game at its root was being destroyed in its homeland. After the Communist revolution of 1949, gambling was banished in China by Mao Tse-tung, and officially sanctioned gambling became a politically sensitive issue that stayed off the table for decades¹³.

Mahjong suffered its worst blow during the Cultural Revolution, from 1966 to 1976. The game was banned outright, seen as a symbol of capitalist corruption⁴. Its association with gambling and with the old merchant class made it exactly the kind of pastime the revolution was designed to erase. During the Cultural Revolution the game suffered many setbacks in its country of origin, particularly in connection with gambling⁵. Tiles were destroyed, play went underground, and a tradition that had been building for a century was nearly severed.

Hong Kong, outside Beijing's control, kept the game alive. The colony's mahjong tables never stopped, and the game remained woven into family life, weddings, Chinese New Year and ordinary weekends. In that sense Hong Kong served as a refuge for mahjong during the decades when the mainland could not openly play it.

The story has a happier ending. Mahjong has since been considered an official sport in mainland China since 1998¹⁴, and it has been officially recognized as an international sport since that same year¹⁴. The game that was once a symbol of capitalist corruption is now a competitive mind sport, with tournaments and federations, and it is making a comeback in the country of its birth⁵.

Mahjong in Hong Kong today

In today's Hong Kong, mahjong is everywhere and nowhere at once. It is a home game, a family game and a festival game, played by generations who learned it at their grandmother's table. The Hong Kong version, known as Hong Kong Old Style, is only slightly different from the classical Chinese version and is one of the world's most common variants⁸. Other well-known versions include Chinese Classical and Zung Jung¹⁵.

Money is often part of the picture, but usually in a small-stakes, social way. A common stake level is called "一二蚊" (one-two dollars). At that level:

• A three-fan self-drawn win costs each of the three opponents HKD 8¹⁶
• If you win off a discard, the discarder pays HKD 16 and the other two players pay HKD 4 each¹⁶

The amounts are modest by design: the money keeps score and keeps the game sharp, rather than emptying anyone's wallet.

The legal line depends on where you play. It is the type of premises in which mahjong games take place that largely determines the legality of the game¹⁷. Social gambling among friends, such as a home game, falls under an exemption in the Gambling Ordinance⁶. Licensed mahjong parlors are also permitted, as gaming activities approved by a public officer appointed under the Gambling Ordinance⁶. But playing for money in unlicensed clubs or associations, or on premises where rental or commission is charged for tables, tiles and chips, is unlawful, and the players themselves may be committing an offense¹⁷.

If you want to see the game up close, licensed parlors still exist. The Hong Kong Mahjong Company in Wan Chai has hosted open house events where newcomers are walked into the game¹⁸. Beyond the parlors, you will find mahjong in homes, at family gatherings, and in the general hum of the city's older neighborhoods. For a fuller practical guide, see mahjong in Hong Kong.

The rest of the city's legal gambling sits with the Jockey Club. The government's long-standing policy restricts gambling to a small number of regulated avenues¹⁹:

• Horse racing, run by the Hong Kong Jockey Club
• The Mark Six lottery
• Football betting, also run by the Jockey Club
• Betting activities approved by the licensing authority, such as mahjong parlors

Everything else, from casinos to online betting, sits outside the permitted channels. There are no traditional casinos in Hong Kong, and casino gambling in land-based casinos is not legal, with no license available for it⁶. For the racing side of the story, see horse racing in Hong Kong and the Hong Kong lottery.

What the history explains about gambling attitudes

This history shapes how Hong Kong feels about gambling today, and it explains a few things that might otherwise puzzle a visitor.

First, the city draws a sharp line between gambling as a social pastime and gambling as a business. Mahjong at home with relatives is normal, unremarkable, almost wholesome. The same game played for money in an unlicensed club is a criminal matter. That distinction runs straight back to the colonial era, when the government learned that banning the appetite only pushed it into shadows, and that licensing it kept it visible and controllable.

Second, Hong Kong's system is built on monopoly rather than prohibition. Instead of many competing operators, the city channels nearly all legal betting through the Hong Kong Jockey Club, which offers horse race betting, football betting and a lottery¹⁰. The government's stated policy is to restrict gambling to a small number of regulated channels while cracking down hard on illegal gambling and its social problems, such as fraud, underage gambling, loan sharking, triads and crime²⁰. The 2002 amendment against offshore bookmakers fits the same pattern: when gambling moved offshore, the law followed it¹².

Third, the mainland's harsh experience with gambling left its mark on the region's attitudes. Gambling has been prohibited in China since 1949¹³, and that prohibition, combined with the Cultural Revolution's assault on mahjong, created a sharp contrast between a mainland that treated gambling as a social evil and a Hong Kong that treated it as something to be regulated and taxed. Visitors from the mainland often find Hong Kong's betting shops and racecourses striking precisely because such things do not exist at home.

Fourth, the government does acknowledge the costs. Alongside enforcement, it funds counseling and treatment services for problem and pathological gamblers, with two service centers set up and their effectiveness evaluated over time¹². Gambling is treated as a managed part of life, not celebrated and not denied.

For a first-time visitor, the practical takeaway is simple. Hong Kong's gambling culture is real, old and mostly domestic: mahjong tiles clicking at a family table, a Mark Six ticket bought at a Jockey Club outlet, a night at Happy Valley Racecourse. The history explains why the city offers this narrow, orderly version of gambling rather than the casino floors of Macau or Manila, and why a game that was once banned as capitalist corruption is now, on both sides of the border, simply part of the furniture of life.