Legislative Council passes Betting Tax (Amendment) Bill 2025

Hong Kong's Legislative Council passed the Betting Duty (Amendment) Bill 2025 on 11 September 2025, the Home and Youth Affairs Bureau said, creating a framework to regulate basketball betting in the city¹. Secretary for Home and Youth Affairs Mak Mei-kuen told reporters after the vote that the government does not encourage gambling and was acting against rampant illegal betting¹.

The ordinance, No. 38 of 2025, adds basketball betting under an exclusive license taxed at 50% of net stake receipts and requires problem gambling notices on licensees' websites and mobile applications³. The Secretary for Home and Youth Affairs is empowered to issue a license to a company to conduct betting on the results of, or contingencies relating to, basketball matches, and to impose licensing conditions⁴. The regime mirrors the football betting model, under which the Hong Kong Jockey Club is the only lawful bookmaker⁴. The conditions proposed in the 2025 consultation would exclude matches involving Hong Kong teams or played in Hong Kong³.

Mak said the framework was one part of a wider approach, and that illegal betting carries penalties for players as well as operators.

She said that participating in illegal gambling, including illegal online betting, carries a prison sentence of nine months and a fine on conviction, and that not only those who run gambling operations face punishment¹. She also said monitoring through the Jockey Club and other channels showed that when a regulated football betting channel was offered, traffic to illegal channels and money flowing into them fell, in some cases by more than half¹. She said the government had already asked the Jockey Club to increase resources for the Ping Wo Fund, which currently runs four counseling centers, and that a fifth center would be added with a focus on outreach and education for young people¹.

What it means for players

Basketball betting is not yet available in Hong Kong. The law was passed in September 2025, but no license has been issued, and the government halted the rollout in April 2026⁴. The government paused the introduction of basketball betting, originally planned for late 2026, over concerns that it might fuel prediction markets gambling, and said it would further study the emerging prediction markets model and platform before introducing new betting products⁵. A Home and Youth Affairs Bureau spokesperson reportedly said any betting on sports on prediction market platforms was illegal⁵.

For anyone in Hong Kong, the existing rules are unchanged. All gambling is unlawful except what is expressly authorized, which covers authorized horse racing, football betting and the Mark Six lottery, plus licensed activities such as mahjong parlors⁵. Betting with an unauthorized bookmaker is prohibited whether or not the bet is received inside or outside Hong Kong, and betting with overseas bookmakers is an offense even where those bookmakers are legal in the jurisdiction where they operate⁴. Taking bets placed from Hong Kong offshore is punishable by up to HK$5 million and seven years, and betting with an unlawful bookmaker is an offense for the player, with fines at levels 3 to 5 and up to nine months in prison on a third conviction³. The minimum age is 18³. There has so far been no court case or official guidance on whether prediction markets are illegal in Hong Kong⁵.

What happens next

The government has given no timetable for basketball betting. It said it would decide the timing after studying prediction markets and their effect on illegal gambling³. The government will further study the emerging prediction markets model and platform before introducing new betting products⁵. The Jockey Club has already undertaken preparatory work for basketball betting, and the regime could be rolled out quickly once the government gives approval⁴.

Separately, the government put proposals to reform amusement games with prizes licensing to the Legislative Council Panel on Home Affairs, Culture and Sports on 11 May 2026; no bill has been published³.