The policy is considered a test for a possible country-wide legalization in the coming years.
 
The first legal gambling on races will be at the Orient Lucky City racecourse in Wuhan. The Orient Lucky Horse Group Cooperation will lead the project development. 
Betting will be conducted "on a trial basis," until early 2009, experts said. About 250 horses from different jockey clubs around the country will participate in the races. 

Three million new jobs

According to Qin Zunwen, a leading expert in the study of horse racing and betting, the gambling industry, may create three million jobs a year.  Annual lottery sales may reach a massive $13.7 billion very soon.

Government officials in Wuhan started to study the "feasibility" of introducing betting on horse racing three years ago, and have since produced several reports to the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference, an organ of the Communist Party.

A survey conducted by the Hubei Academy of Social Sciences demonstrated that 83.3% of the Wuhan residents believed the introduction of betting would have a positive social impact, and 51 percent of the respondents said they were "interested" or "very interested" in gambling on the horse races. 

Back in the early 1900s, Wuhan was a center of horse racing, where foreign and Chinese businessmen developed three racecourses.

But, the Communists banned all forms of gambling on the Chinese mainland in 1949.

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