Horse racing betting: How UK punters can bet on Sha Tin’s HKIR meeting

RACING from Hong Kong continues to grow in popularity around the world, especially in the United Kingdom where bettors can take advantage of the monster pots from the world’s largest tote pools.

Household-known jockeys such as Silvestre de Sousa, Oisin Murphy, Ryan Moore and Neil Callan have all ridden out in Hong Kong in recent times, offering punters a sense of familiarity.

The same can be said for the horses, with a number of equine stars swapping UK and Irish soil for a chance of landing better prize money at both Sha Tin and Happy Valley.

Fans of Hong Kong racing residing slightly closer to home can catch all the action from Happy Valley (Wednesday) and Sha Tin (Sunday) up and down the high street in betting shops, as well as on At The Races (soon to be Sky Racing).

Sunday’s huge Hong Kong International Races (HKIR) meeting will be live on ATR, with a crew reporting live from Sha Tin ahead of the first race at 6.00am.

A huge amount of cash is bet into the Hong Kong pools and Sunday’s action is expected to be one of the biggest days in its history. So, it’s no surprise to see punters in the UK and Ireland wanting to get involved.

Numerous deals are in place with bookmakers, allowing UK punters to bet on the races up and down the high street at betting shops including Betfred, Coral, Ladbrokes and William Hill.

Those preferring to place their wagers online can get their bets on with all of the above, as well as Totepool, Black Type and BetPoint.

As in the UK and Ireland, simple Win and Place bets are the easiest and most popular bets to place at both Happy Valley and Sha Tin and these can be placed on traditional tote betting slips in shops.

These follow the traditional method of filling out the slip with the meeting name and race number, before shop staff populate your bet into the Hong Kong pools as they would a domestic meeting.

It is important to remember that these bets can only be placed using these tote slips and not the plain slips also used in betting shops.

However, there are also a wide range of other betting options that the Hong Kong public enjoy just as much as punters watching here, such as the Quinella, which is an exacta/forecast.

With a combination exacta or forecast it is possible to perm a Quinella and punters also have the option of a Quinella Place, which lands if you can find any two of the first three placed horses, which is appealing in Hong Kong where there’s never a race with more than 14 runners.

Other bet types which will be rolled out soon include the Tierce (1st, 2nd and 3rd in the correct order), Trio (1st, 2nd and 3rd in any order) and the First 4 (1st, 2nd, 3rd and 4th in any order) to name just three.

Remember if you are betting online, or using an app, search for Hong Kong Racing under the International Tote Pool betting.