Macau Says ‘Whoa’ to Horse Racing, Holds Last Races

China’s gambling hub of Macau held its last-place Equus caballus races on Saturday. Gamblers who only half-filled the Taipa Racecourse stands placed their last final bets as the ending came to a 40-year tradition in the city known primarily for its casinos.

In January, the city’s governance announced it was terminating its contract with the MJC 18 years early. According to a 24-year declaration signed in 2018, the MJC sworn to put millions into improving base and expanding offerings.

That never happened because horse racing in the former Portuguese colony ne'er recovered after the pandemic. After the MJC accumulated o'er $311 zillion inwards operating losses endure year, its parent company, the Macau Horse Racing Company (MHRC), asked the government to liberate it from the contract.

Citing the “impossibility of aligning Equus caballus racing activities with the stream developmental needs of society,” and taking into thoughtfulness “that these activities hold progressively lost their appeal to local residents and tourists inwards recent years, the government, after thorough research, decided to live with the application from the Macau Horse Race Company,” Secretary for Administration and Justice Cheong Weng Chon told reporters inward January.

Under the conclusion agreement, the MHRC testament send the owners’ horses to other locations past Mar 31 2025, and supply severance pay to the company’s employees. (Despite its diminishing popularity in Macau, the MJC remained ane of Macau’s biggest buck private employers with around 800 fulltime and 300 parttime workers.)

The ground presently tenanted by the MJC, which includes the Taipa Racecourse, testament be returned to the government, which has no plans to build another racetrack. Lawmakers feature previously raised the possible action that the rail could be transformed into a bowl for international sports events.

The MJC has held the scoop rights to tender horse racing and Equus caballus betting inward Macau since its founding as a rein racing line called the Macau Trotting Club inward 1980. But rein racing never got out of the gate inward Macau, so the club pivoted to the thoroughbred kind.

In 1991, the MJC was acquired past the MHRC, a syndicate led past late gaming tycoon Stanley Ho, who held the casino monopoly inwards Macau until 2002.

Horse racing remains popular inwards neighboring Hong Kong.

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