Hong Kong Dollar
The Hong Kong Dollar is the official currency of Hong Kong, and is also the unofficial currency of Macau. It was introduced in 1863, while Hong Kong was still a British colony. The Hong Kong dollar has remained the official currency of Hong Kong ever since, even though the former colony is now officially a special administrative region of China.
The Hong Kong dollar is subdivided into 10 sin, and one hou is further subdivided into ten sin or cents, and the ISO code for the currency is HKD. The official currency symbol is the letters "$", although outside of Hong Kong and China the symbol "HK$" is used to distinguish the Hong Kong dollar from other dollar-based currencies.
Hong Kong Dollar history
Hone Kong was first established as an important port for trade in 1841. At the time there was no such thing as a local currency, so foreign currencies - typically Indian rupees, and Spanish and Mexican currencies - were used, as well as Chinese coins. The British attempted to force sterling as the official currency of the colony, but their efforts were not successful.
By the middle of the nineteenth century it has become clear that the British pound would never be successfully adopted as the local currency in Hong Kong, so the British government instead introduced the Hong Kong dollar. The dollar was initially minted in London, but in 1866 minting was moved to Hong Kong itself. The Chinese were not in favour of this, and so after just two years of operation the mint was closed down and the equipment sold to Japan, who used it to mint their own newly-introduced currency, the yen.
The Hong Kong dollar remained the official currency of Hong Kong when the colony was handed over to China from the UK in 1997. British ex-pats who remained in Hong Kong after the switch still refer to the Hong Kong dollar as the "Honkie".
The first coins introduced for the currency in 1863 were the one mil, and one and ten cents. This was followed three years later by five and twenty cents, and the half- and one-dollar. Due to inflation all coins lower in value than ten cents were withdrawn, and two, five and ten dollar coins added.
Notes were and still are issued in Hong Kong by banks, rather than the government. These were first introduced in 1845, with 1, 5, 10, 25, 50, 100 and 500 dollar notes issued by the Chartered Bank of India, Australia and China. Notes as small as one cent have been issued, particularly after the Second World War due to the lack of metal available for coinage.
Hong Kong Dollar today
Today, one Hong Kong Dollar is worth around £0.08, or $0.13.
One British Pound is worth around HK$12.50, while one US dollar is worth around HK$7.75.
There are no land-based casinos in Hong Kong due to governmental restrictions, although gambling on cruise ships is permitted. Hong Kong has made moves to legalise gambling, in 2006 and 2007, but on both occasions the Hong Kong government did not vote in favour of the change. Online casinos are not allowed to operate in Hong Kong, although people in Hong Kong are allowed to play at online casinos that fall outside Hong Kong's jurisdiction. The Hong Kong dollar is not readily accepted as a currency to use in such casinos, although people in Hong Kong are free to fund their gambling accounts in this currency for conversion into dollars, GBPs or euros, or to open e-Wallet accounts in such currencies.