What Happened to the Macao Canidrome Greyhounds

The answer

The Canidrome, on Avenida General Castelo Branco in central Macau, held its final greyhound race meeting on July 20, 2018. The Macau government moved to seize control of the track the following day and shut it down¹. It had been running since 1932, started by an American, and was the only greyhound racing track in China⁶.

The closure did not come out of nowhere. In 2016 the Macau government gave the operator two years to relocate the dogs and improve their conditions, or close the track³. The operator, Macau (Yat Yuen) Canidrome Company Limited, was controlled by Angela Leong on Kai, a prominent Macau politician and the fourth wife of Stanley Ho². The concession had already been extended more than once. In 2015 it was set to expire on December 31, and the government planned a temporary renewal without changing the terms of the existing contract⁷. A further extension ran from January 1, 2017, under a contract signed at the Finance Bureau Notary Office⁹.

What actually ended it was animal welfare pressure. The Macau Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals had long said that greyhounds judged unable to win races were put down⁶. Once the two-year deadline passed without the dogs being moved, the government stepped in and the track closed.

The dogs themselves were the big question. Around 500 greyhounds were at the Canidrome when it shut. Most were sent overseas to new homes, with the United States taking the largest share, and others going to Europe and Australia². The last group of greyhounds left the Canidrome in a series of departures organized with animal welfare groups². Not all of them made it out in time. Dozens were left behind at the track past the deadline, and the fight to rehome those dogs became a running story for months after the closure².

The building is still there. One year after the closure, the Canidrome was still waiting for better days, with no redevelopment under way¹⁰. As of now the site remains unused, and no firm plan for what replaces it has been announced.

Who it applies to

This is history, not a live venue, so the practical answer is the same for everyone. Citizens, foreign residents and visitors cannot watch greyhound racing in Macau, because there is none. The concession expired in 2018 and no new one was granted⁴.

If you are visiting Macau and hoping for any kind of racing, the picture is now empty. Horse racing at the Macau Jockey Club was abolished in April 2024⁵. After that, all public gambling in Macau other than casinos disappeared¹¹. The racecourse facilities were temporarily handed to the Macau Horse Race Company Ltd after the concession ended, to allow an orderly and phased transfer of the horses¹². The horse racing concession itself had been extended for 24 years and 6 months, running from March 1, 2018 to August 31, 2042, but that was cut short by the 2024 closure¹³.

So what is left for a visitor? Casinos. Macau is the only jurisdiction in the People's Republic of China where casino gaming is lawful¹⁴, and it is the only place in the country where gambling is legal at all¹⁵. There are six gaming concessionaires operating under agreements that began in January 2023¹⁶. Live poker is permitted inside licensed casinos and overseen as part of the regulated gaming industry¹⁶. If you want the full picture of what you can and cannot do in the city, see Can I Gamble in Macau?.

For anyone interested in how Macau got here, the Canidrome story sits inside a longer history of monopoly concessions and racing culture. The STDM monopoly covers the casino side, and Stanley Ho and the Macau Gambling Monopoly covers the man whose family controlled the dog track. The wider regional picture of racing and its decline is covered in Gambling Culture and History in Asia.

Conditions and exceptions

The Canidrome operated under a formal concession contract, and the terms explain a lot about how the place worked while it was open. The contract covered greyhound racing and pari-mutuel betting based on race results¹⁷, offered through:

• the Canidrome stadium and its auxiliary facilities
• telephone or internet betting systems
• off-course betting centers approved by the granting entity

Entry worked on a two-tier basis. Members of the Canidrome club were exempt from the statutory tax for entering the stadium during race meetings, while any member of the public had to buy an admission ticket subject to stamp duty¹⁷. Unclaimed and expired prizes, and half of broken amounts not included in payouts, accrued to the Macau SAR¹⁷.

Ownership was tightly controlled. The concessionaire's shares were registered shares, and transferring them to anyone who was not an existing shareholder required prior approval from the granting entity¹⁷. That structure kept the track in the same hands for decades.

The end came in stages. The concession was set to expire on December 31, 2015, and the government planned a temporary renewal without changes to the existing terms⁷. A later contract amended the original 1985 concession and ran from January 1, 2017⁹. Then the 2016 relocation deadline arrived, the dogs were not all moved, and the government seized the track in July 2018².

Here is the practical summary:

If you are planning a trip around gambling in the region, the live options are elsewhere. Can I Gamble in Hong Kong? covers the racing and lottery scene there, and Can I Gamble in China? explains the mainland rules, where Macau is the only place gambling is legal¹⁵. For the broader question of why so much of Asia restricts gambling, see Why Many Asian Countries Restrict Gambling.

One thing worth knowing if you are new to Macau: the city is small, about 12 square miles, and it returned to Chinese rule on December 20, 1999¹⁸. It grew into the world's most lucrative gambling destination, drawing big American casinos and catering mostly to Chinese tourists¹⁸. The Canidrome was part of the older Macau, before that boom, and its closure marked the end of an era for the city's non-casino gambling.