Yat Yuen Canidrome’s future hangs in balance amid competition from casinos and pressure from animal rights groups

Scooters line the avenue as people weave their way through the bustling stalls selling fruit and street food. But take a few steps across the road and the atmosphere at Asia’s only greyhound racing track, the Yat Yuen Canidrome, on the main island of Macau, could not be more different.

 It’s 7.20pm on a Tuesday and the first race – one of 18 held five nights a week at the venue – is about to start. Gamblers meander through a huge rusty gate that pulsates with kitsch neon-lit dogs. On the right of the gate is a separate betting room for those who prefer wagering on two-legged animals. “Go in there if you want to bet on the soccer and basketball,” says the friendly security guard. With the glow of the casinos in the background, there’s much to remind you that you are in the world’s biggest gambling hub – and the only place in China where gambling is legal. And it dominates with gambling revenues last year (2014) hitting US$44.1 billion, according to the Gaming Inspection and Coordination Bureau (DICJ), the government body overseeing gaming activities in the former Portuguese colony.

The admission fee is just a mere 10 patacas. But ask animal rights campaigners like Albano Martins, the chief of Macau-based animal shelter Anima, and they will tell you the cost is much higher. More like one dead dog a day, says Martins, citing a 2011 investigation by the South China Morning Post that revealed the Canidrome killed 383 underperforming dogs in 2010 instead of making efforts to rehome them, triggering a global backlash. He claims dogs are still being killed and says the Canidrome’s adoption programme, implemented under government orders to rehome dogs instead of killing greyhounds, is a scam

 Now the city’s greyhound racing industry is back in the spotlight, not just because of claims by Martins that underperforming dogs are still being killed at a rate of 30 a month, but also as the lease for the track nears its October 31 expiry date.