The Hong Kong Jockey Club revealed some noticeable dropbacks in its financials for FY2023/24, with multiple external factors causing an offset in overall racing wagering turnover.
During its AGM, the Club reflected on the financial year ending 30 June, 2024 as a period that required resilience to withstand a number of challenges posed by a ‘worsening macro-economic environment, threats of illegal gambling, and rising competition from Macau casinos’.
Looking at the latest racing season, local racing wagering turnover fell by 9.3% YoY as a result of “a fundamental post-pandemic shift” in consumer behaviour – with digital wagering emerging as the preferred experience for bettors.
Meanwhile, the Club said that it did manage to bring some sort of balance to this thanks to a global expansion strategy to build an overseas customer base. This strategy brought a around HK$28.8bn (£2.8bn) in commingled turnover from Hong Kong racing – a 13.7% increase YoY and a total of 23.7% from the season’s local racing turnover.
Additionally, the Club’s World Pool offering, which aims to make Hong Kong the leader in wagering on world races through commingling and simulcasting, brought back a total of HK$12.8bn – or 8.7% more than the previous year.
Regardless, an offset to the decline in overall racing wagering turnover could not be achieved, leading to a decline of 3.1% in FY2023/24 (HK$136.1bn). This was in contrast to the HK$140.3bn generated in FY2022/23.
Michael Lee, Chairman of the Club, commented: “The Club will continue to invest and, if necessary, make use of its reserves, both to ensure the Club’s long-term future and to uphold our commitment to the community.”
There was a better performance seen across football turnover, with a ‘record high’ results of HK$160.3bn for FY 2023/24, which represented a 2% increase YoY.
“Additional fixtures, the introduction of 24-hour operations, an increase in In Play offerings, as well as innovative new products like Same Game All Up and Early Settlement, all helped boost turnover and counter illegal markets,” the Club stated.
However, despite football turnover gains, income from football wagering went down 16.6% to HK$8.1bn due to a surplus of HK$2.4bn per year that the Club now has to pay as a Special Football Betting Duty for a total of five years until April 2028.
But despite all of these setbacks, the impact on the Club’s total FY2023/24 turnover was practically nonexistent, remaining flat at HK$304.9bn.
Club CEO Winfried Engelbrecht-Bresges added: “Looking back over the past year I am once again struck by the enormous resilience of the Club. Having taken everything that the pandemic had to throw at us, we have had to contend with an extremely challenging macro-economic environment as well as significant changes in customer behaviour as they seek out new experiences online or in outbound destinations.
“Despite this, the Club has continued to deliver outstanding racing entertainment and the strongest support for our community.”
https://sbcnews.co.uk/retail/2024/09/06/hong-kong-jockey-club-says-global-turbulence-behind-3-drop-in-racing-turnover/