Inside Asian Gaming

the turnover was on quinella-based wager- ing, and there is no exacta. You look at the four bet types here; win, place, quinella and quinella-place is over 80% of total turnover. So the Triple Play, which is a concept that I’ve put forward, is a multi-leg wager, three con- secutive races whereby the selection would have to place in the first leg, place in the sec- ond leg and win in the third leg. We try to get people more comfortable with the idea of looking two races ahead. This could be in place by the end of the year. It has been said that the Asian finan- cial crisis and the handover of Hong Kong to China in 1997 are factors that began a downturn in race wagering for the Jockey Club. What other factors contributed to the fall-off in wagering levels in the past decade? Nader: We went from HK$100 billion in 1997 down to HK$60 billion in 2006. This is the first year we’ve had positive growth; we’ll be up about 6%, so I came at a good time.The one thing we can point to that def- initely affected our business was when the lottery started offering fixed-odds betting on soccer three or four years ago. Soccer will do about HK$30 billion this year and the lot- tery does HK$6.5 billion, so total wagering is back over HK$100 billion. Sports betting will be slightly down this year because of the World Cup last year. Will the growth of Macau impact the Jockey Club? Nader: It’s going to; we’re just too close. There are some tax and marketing restric- tions here that limit growth opportunities and to have Macau become such a huge presence is a challenge that is there today and will be bigger tomorrow. What can the Jockey Club do to pre- pare for competition fromMacau? Nader: One of the things we will do is undergo a master plan to spend hundreds of millions of US dollars in capital investment in Sha Tin and Happy Valley. It will take 5 to 10 years to complete but it will be an investment in our future. These are pretty good facilities to begin with but we need to make further investment to solidify our future and appeal to a wider customer base. We also need to make our business a 365-day-ayear operation as there are only 78 race meetings a year between the two fa- cilities. Given our location, in Happy Valley in particular, if we are successful in making the facility attractive on non-race days, we’ll be able to position ourselves for our customers as world-class thoroughbred racing and a lot more. What that “more” is will be important for us. We have a lot of members at different levels that have access to the facilities and the clubhouses and we can build on that.We can reach out to a new target audience and bring them into the facility on non-race days.We’re just about to open a restaurant at Happy Val- ley that will be tremendous; it will be part of the racing club.The racing club will be part of a three-horse syndicate that will also have use of this dining. It will be open five or six nights to racing club members almost on an exclu- sive basis.We’ll be creating an experience that is not restricted to“X”days-per-year. What is the potential for increasing the Jockey Club’s racing product’s exposure to global markets? Nader: Right now, the interest is more in seeing howour horses compete international- ly.We have 6.9 million residents in Hong Kong and 1.3 million wagering accounts, which is phenomenal. There is not a single race that doesn’t generate huge coverage and interest. Each of the 726 races that comprise a season here is an event.The races that don’t generate the most interest are those where you have horses coming in from out of the country to participate. In this market, the wagering profile is to bet on the horses you are famil- iar with. If you put two horses from America and two horses from Europe in with 10 horses fromHong Kong in a Class 1 race,that race will generate less interest than a Class III race with all local horses. We still want to bring horses in to showcase the best possible competition and to let the outside world know that Hong Kong racing has really arrived. When Vengeance of Rain went to Dubai and won the Sheema Classic, I could feel the pride and I hadn’t even started the job yet, so you can imagine what it was like in Hong Kong.Horses like Viva Pataca and Medic Pow- er are also top-class horses.For a country that has a thoroughbred horse population of less than 1,200, it’s impressive. There’s enormous pride; there was an invitation-only event last night at the Hong Kong Country Club held by the owners of Medic Power, which is a syndicate led by a doctor . He wanted to give back to the people who were close to Medic Power and to racing in Hong Kong. Would racing Hong Kong horses in- ternationally be a positive for the Jock- ey Club? Nader: Yes, and for Hong Kong. When you a look around Hong Kong you see the HKJC stamp everywhere, whether it be edu- cation, hospitals, or charitable contributions. We have an HK$8 billion to cover and we’re the biggest taxpayer; about 9% of all revenue generated for the government. In addition to that, there’s a separate contribution for chari- ties; we’ve spent at least HK$1 billion per year for as long as we can remember. As a not-for-profit we are such a big part of Hong Kong, when you can get a horse to make the journey to Dubai and win a $5 mil- lion race like the Sheema Classic, it’s time to have a parade on the street. It really is a cel- ebration. A lot of the initiatives that the Jockey Club takes are to do what’s best for the rac- ing industry. Bringing competition to the in- dustry is what really needs to be done. The Breeder’s Cup bills itself as an international The Sha Tin race course 47 The Happy valley race course