Macau's Jockey Club lost MOP 2.5 billion across 44 years, then quit 18 years early

Horse racing in Macau began with a trotting club that opened in 1980. A Taiwan consortium bought the operation in 1988 and converted it to a gallop course, and around 1990–91 a consortium led by "gambling king" Stanley Ho took majority control. In 2018 the concession was extended for 24.5 years, to run from March 2018 to August 2042 — on condition the operator inject MOP 1.5 billion and renovate the facilities within five years.

The business had been loss-making since the day it opened. Accumulated losses exceeded MOP 2.5 billion; a 2019 capital increase of MOP 400 million — taking paid-in capital to MOP 1 billion — was consumed by MOP 603 million of losses over the next four years, leaving net assets of only MOP 240 million at the end of 2022. Betting turnover collapsed from MOP 8.17 billion in 2004 to under MOP 200 million in 2023, and average race-day attendance fell to 492.

In mid-2023 the operator formally asked the government to end the concession, citing operational difficulties and saying racing no longer met the needs of social development. The request was accepted, announced in January 2024, and racing ceased on 1 April 2024 — 18 years before the concession was due to expire. No new tender was held. The Taipa racecourse site, more than 400,000 square metres, reverts to the government free of charge from April 2025.

At the end the club was a shadow of its peak: about 289 horses and roughly 570 staff, against more than 1,200 horses and a single-season betting peak above MOP 9 billion in 2003–04. The shareholders' own decision — to keep funding a monopoly that never made money, and then to walk away 18 years early — ended 44 years of racing in Macau.