Questionable betting exchanges are profiting off Hong Kong racing's clean record
Hong Kong racing is seen as the cleanest in the world but there lurks a parallel world of betting where brokers and punters ride shotgun on the city's billion-dollar industry and reap the financial benefits
It's three minutes before a race at Sha Tin and bets are flying thick and fast through cyberspace. Tens of millions of dollars appear to change hands as punters furiously trade money on individual horses - like commodities on a futures exchange.
This isn't the Hong Kong Jockey Club's massive totalisator pools though - the bets are being traded on leviathan betting site CITIbet, thought to be the biggest player in a murky collective of offshore operators betting on Hong Kong's racing.
In the past decade, Asia's underground bookmakers have made a seamless transition from dingy parlours and backstreet casinos to the internet. On CITIbet, horses can be bet to lose, accounts and lines of credit are easily obtained and cash payments are suspected to be made through the notorious VIP rooms of Macau casinos.
It's about having the knowledge of what is going on with the sites, which can have a bearing on how you view the race
One minute before the race, the action on CITIbet stabilises and the Jockey Club's betting pools now begin to swell - sometimes doubling in the last 60 seconds before the horses jump.
The numbers for turnover tick over rapidly, climbing to the point where more than HK$100 million is bet on a single race.
Green and brown lights - indicating dramatic price fluctuations - appear on Sha Tin's massive in-field tote board, mirroring the movements seen moments earlier on CITIbet, lighting it up like a Christmas tree and drawing "oohs" and "ahhs" from the massive crowd, and further spurring the action to fever pitch as punters "follow the money".
Most of the money bet passes not through the tote windows in cash, but through online betting accounts.
