The People’s Committee of Soc Son district on the outskirts of Hanoi (near the airport) is asking for opinions with respect to building a racetrack and entertainment complex in the area, Nha Dau Tu (the Vietnamese language version of The Investor) is reporting. The project would cover 125 hectares and cost US$420 million to complete.
Of note, gambling is currently mostly illegal in Vietnam. That said, illegal gambling is rife and there have been concerted efforts to stamp out the practice by making it legal. This, however, has been a very slow process with overly cautious regulations making a business case for an organised gambling enterprise difficult to make.
Sports betting (which is limited to certain sports and certain leagues), for example, requires firms to obtain a licence of which the first and only licence was issued in January of 2023. To date, this has not resulted in any official betting system or service.
All of that said, it’s not clear a racetrack in northern Vietnam would target Vietnamese gamblers–just a hop, skip, and a jump from the Chinese border and a stone’s throw from the airport, it would likely be very attractive to residents of its neighbour to the north.