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For: Alissa Mak, 14, Victoria Shanghai Academy
There is no one period in life when you are objectively ready to engage in sports betting. But when a young person is exposed to it, their limited maturity and experience can make the harmful activity even worse.
Currently, Hong Kong’s legal sports betting age is 18 years old. Betting is gambling with money, online or in person, for the outcome of sports such as horse racing.
When 18-year-olds enter adulthood, they become responsible for their money and gain financial freedom. However, they are still susceptible to pressure from social media or peers. If gambling is normalised and widely celebrated by those around you, you would likely fall under its influence.
Research suggests that most people only reach maturity in their mid-to-late 20s. This means 18-year-olds are still bound to make rash, impulsive decisions, including irreversible ones that permanently affect their wealth.
To add, the entire concept of gambling is designed as entertainment.
Sports betting is centred around risk. You receive a rush of dopamine, the “feel-good” chemical, with every bet and the possibility of winning money. This triggers a cycle that thrives on the chance of monetary gain, and the habit becomes increasingly difficult to break the more you bet.
Losses come with almost every win, but how long are people willing to wait? Gambling addiction persists because people choose to keep playing in an attempt to make up for previous losses; the glimmer of hope that “perhaps I will win all my money back in the next round”.
While there is an opportunity for gain, it is more likely that the outcome will not be in your favour and will only damage your bank account.
In the rare case that you win sports bets, you are rewarded for taking a risk, which gives you an incentive to continue. Thus, you are constantly chasing the unreachable, intangible feeling of thrill and pleasure.
In conclusion, sports betting is a manipulative activity that exploits vulnerable young adults. Raising the legal age in Hong Kong from 18 years old will mitigate such harms.
We must wait until people are emotionally mature and financially stable enough to take part in sports betting and instead promote safer entertainment alternatives.
Against: Ziyan Huang, 17, Harrow International School Hong Kong
Age is just a number – until it isn’t. In matters such as military conscription, civic responsibility and more, 18 not only marks one’s transition to legal adulthood, but also the line between dependence and accountability.
On the surface, proposals to raise the legal age for sports betting in Hong Kong seem sensible. In practice, however, this move ultimately fails to serve the very protection it promises.
The rationale for raising Hong Kong’s legal betting age rests on the fundamental idea that youth are more likely to be impulsive when making decisions.
Yet if this is the argument for adding restrictions, why not extend this same logic to legal contracts or driving? Hong Kong law grants 18-year-olds the full rights of legal adulthood, including the consequences that come with it.
To simultaneously recognise maturity while questioning young people’s capacity to place a wager represents a larger legislative inconsistency. Maturity defined under the law cannot be selectively evoked for the sake of convenience.
Furthermore, raising the legal betting age would displace activity into illegal channels. Under the Hong Kong Jockey Club, strict measures such as mandatory identity verification, bans on betting on credit and self-exclusion services are crucial to maintaining a safe and transparent environment that protects consumers.
In contrast, unregulated services are much more vulnerable to organised crime, loan sharking or fraud – and more accessible to youth through anonymous online platforms or underground centres.
In 2024, the government estimated that up to HK$90 billion was directly generated by illegal basketball bets involving around 430,000 residents.
Pushing young people away from legal channels does not eliminate demand, but compounds the very gambling-related problems that policymakers seek to mitigate. The choice makes enforcement less effective and makes helping vulnerable individuals significantly harder.
Ultimately, raising the legal age for betting on sports events offers an illusory and deceptive mirage of social benefit. Effective risk reduction requires strategies that target root causes, such as increased financial literacy integrated into education, to protect the next generation.
