Chief Executive John Lee said on Tuesday that the government has to be cautious about launching basketball betting in Hong Kong.

He was speaking after the Home and Youth Affairs Bureau said last week that plans for a launch, following the legalisation of basketball betting last year, had been suspended, citing the rapid growth of prediction markets overseas.

The bureau had pointed out that involvement in such markets – which are platforms where people trade contracts on the outcome of future events – is currently illegal for locals.

Lee said the government had never striven to encourage gambling and that he thought the bureau did the right thing in pausing the launch to study the matter in greater detail.

He noted that prediction markets had expanded rapidly in the past two years and created a lot of risks that the government has to mitigate and control.

"It's more than gambling; it is to do with a lot of speculation that sometimes makes use of virtual assets," Lee said before an Executive Council meeting.

"We have to be very sure how it will impact the gambling scene in Hong Kong."

Lee stressed that the government would only proceed if, after assessing all the risks, it is really worthwhile to do so.

Last week, the bureau said the volume of transactions in prediction markets reached US$64 billion last year, a three-fold increase from 2024.

That volume is expected to increase another fivefold by 2030, with 40 percent related to sports.

In a statement, the government said there was a need to conduct more in-depth analysis into the markets, including how they operate, so as to safeguard public interest.


Edited by Thomas McAlinden