Inside Asian Gaming

competition but it’s not really a world cham- pionship; it’s a specific region. As an industry, we need to really open up the lines of com- petition and to really have global participa- tion in races. I’ve talked to a lot of owners and trainers here who would love to go to America and race in the Breeder’s Cup. We’ll get more horses from America to come here; people need to see that. How does the industry get there? Nader: Eventually, we have to create a commingled experience where people can watch and wager. There are a lot of ways to it, and the Internet can help. People worry about the time of day/time zones. But the one thing that Hong Kong can of- fer is robust pools.You’re not go- ing to get a more level play- ing field than here. Pool sizes, good field sizes; anything that anybody wants, we have it. We don’t know their horses and they don’t know ours. The only way to knock that down is to open up the markets and give people a chance to participate by buying parimutuel tickets, whether they do it at a racetrack, a parimu- tuel betting facility or online. Online, espe- cially knocks down that wall. There are some taxation issues that have to be solved, but that is where we really need to go to grow internationally. Where does the Jockey Club go for tax relief? Nader: It’s government, and, I think, as Macau applies pressure to Hong Kong,and as we’re such a big part of Hong Kong from the standpoint of generated tax revenue, there will be, I think, a willingness to work with us so that we’ll be OK. When you interact with other racing organizations internationally, is the com- mingled betting pools issue a top prior- ity? Nader: Yes, and avoiding double taxation remains a challenge and that’s something that needs to be addressed quickly. Simul- casting has been limited in a lot of countries, but I think the growth opportunities can be huge. If we wager on another country’s races with our horses in it we can’t commingle with an independent pool.That creates a problem because the Hong Kong horse will be more heavily backed here, so, by definition, you’re going to get a shorter price and a lesser divi- dend. With simulcasting, you have uniform odds and uniform payout, that’s the beauty of it. So we need to be able to import and ex- port in that framework, so we can watch and wager into the host track’s pools. The taxa- tion issue needs to be solved. How do you create that global iden- tity? Nader: A long time ago, D. Wayne Lu- kas, who was called “D. Wayne on the Plane,” rocked an old school mentality that found it unconscionable to fly a horse from New York to California. He started winning a lot of Grade 1 races, winning a lot of purse money and pro- ducing a lot of disciples. He was a pioneer. Now, it’s not such a shock to see a horse fly from Cali- fornia to New York and vice-versa. We’ve got to take that to the next level. We’ve made progress. Horses will go where there is big money and they’ll travel. But, with- out the ability to watch and wager on a regular basis, these isolated examples will pique curiosity and we’ll only be looking at a one- or two-day opportunity. We need to take that to an experience where people can follow horses from different parts of the world yearround. By Charles Anderer, International Gaming and Wagering Business (IGWB) magazine’s director of trade events. Reprinted with permis- sion from IGWB . We also need to make our business a 365-day-ayear operation as there are only 78 race meetings a year between the two facilities. Given our location, in Happy Valley in particular, if we are successful in making the facility attractive on non-race days, we’ll be able to position ourselves for our cus- tomers as world-class thoroughbred racing and a lot more.” 48