Hong Kong has limited channels for legal gambling, horse racing and lotteries. They are centrally organized by the Hong Kong Jockey Club. Among these, horse racing is the most popular game and accounts for more than 90% of the total betting turnover. The not-for-profit nature of the Hong Kong Jockey Club makes it stand out from other countries' horse racing organisations, and puts it in a perfect position to operate and monitor the pari-mutuel betting on horse racing. The Hong Kong Jockey Club is the largest taxpayer and second largest donor, besides the Hong Kong government, to charity.

As in many other developed countries, the revenue of the horse racing industry is a very important part of government's budgeting. In Hong Kong, the government income from horse racing contributed around HK$11 billion or 6.7% to HKSAR revenue in year 2000/01 and HK$10.5 billion or 6.75% to HKSAR revenue in 2001/02, which is about 10 and over 100 times that of Japan and USA respectively.