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A bill which seeks to amend the Gambling Ordinance to tackle activities of unauthorised offshore bookmakers in Hong Kong will be introduced by the Administration, a spokesman from the Home Affairs Bureau said today (November 8).

The spokesman noted that in recent years, a number of offshore bookmaking companies have been providing betting-related services and promoting their business in Hong Kong, in order to induce Hong Kong people to bet with them.

"These unauthorised activities have somehow undermined the integrity of our long-standing policy of restricting gambling opportunities to a few authorised outlets only," the spokesman said.

Activities of the offshore bookmakers in Hong Kong include setting up telephone service hotlines, advertising business in the local media and establishing service centres. Through these services, Hong Kong people can open betting accounts, make betting deposits, obtain betting information and place bets with the offshore bookmakers conveniently via telephone or the Internet.

"The business of some of these bookmakers have been further promoted and facilitated by the live TV or radio coverage of their racing events locally, with the concurrent provision of betting information," the spokesman said.

The Gambling (Amendment) Bill 2000, which sets out the legislative proposals, has been approved by the Chief Executive-in-Council and will be gazetted on Friday (November 10).

By inserting an extraterritorial element into the provisions, the Bill makes it clear that bookmaking and betting with a bookmaker will be liable to prosecution even if part of the transaction is conducted outside Hong Kong.

To combat betting-related services and promotional activities by offshore bookmakers, an offence of "promoting or facilitating bookmaking" will be created. The Bill will also make it illegal to keep premises for such purposes or for owners and tenants to knowingly permit or suffer their premises to be so used.

Another proposal is to prohibit the broadcast of any forecast, hint, odds, tip in relation to any unauthorised horse or dog racing event via TV or radio, within the 12 hours before the start of that event.

The proposed offence will apply to the broadcast of the betting information rather than the racing events themselves; and the printed media, the Internet and other telecommunications means will be excluded from its coverage as they are either less capable of disseminating instant betting information at present as compared with TV and radio broadcasts or are outside our jurisdiction.

"In constructing this offence, the Administration has tried to strike a balance among the different policy objectives of combating unauthorised gambling activities, preserving freedom of expression and maintaining a liberal broadcasting policy. A narrow and focussed approach has thus been adopted," the spokesman said.

"We believe that the package of legislative proposals taken together will reduce the activities and services of offshore bookmakers in Hong Kong, as well as the attractiveness of and ease with betting with them," he added.

The Administration has consulted the previous LegCo Home Affairs Panel and will consult the Panel again on its latest proposals at its meeting on November 14.

The Gambling (Amendment) Bill 2000 is scheduled for introduction into the LegCo on November 22.

End/Wednesday, November 8, 2000

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