The future of greyhound racing is murky. Can it survive?

It’s Saturday night in Sheffield, and Owlerton Stadium is heaving. Outside, a worse-for-wear stag struggles to muster enough words between them to collect their VIP tickets. Inside, every other do under the sun seems to have assembled here: birthdays, hens, engagements, retirements. In the background, greyhounds – the fastest breed of dog on earth – are pelting around the track at speeds approaching 50mph.

On the face of it, this doesn’t feel like a sport in decline. But greyhound racing faces an increasingly uncertain future. Amid animal welfare concerns and dwindling betting revenues, racetracks are closing at a similarly rapid speed to the races themselves, with three shuttering in 2025 alone.

It’s a far cry from the sport’s glory days. In the post-war years, greyhound racing was the second-most watched sport in the UK. More than 70 tracks opened up across the country to cope with the demand, which predominantly came from working class communities. For fan Tony Harland, who first attended Owlerton in 1972, a night at the dogs was a thrilling experience.

“At 15, I couldn’t get into the pub but I could get into the dog track,” he says. ​“What was fantastic in those days were all the bookmakers; there used to be 10 or 12 of them lined up with crowds of people around them. The whole atmosphere was electric: the tic-tac men were telling everyone what the odds were and there was a huge roar when the hare set off. It was absolutely brilliant.”

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To illustrate the financial power of the sport back then, Harland recalls meeting one of the major Owlerton bookmakers at a family gathering. The bookmaker was carrying a hefty-looking briefcase containing that week’s takings. When he opened it, there was £10,000 in cash inside. That’s about £70k in today’s money.

Since those post-war peaks, the sport’s fortunes have been on a steady descent. Today, just 18 greyhound stadiums are still standing. It has gone from one of the country’s premier spectacles to one that barely merits a mention in the Racing Post. It’s quite a fall from grace for a sport with roots dating back millennia to ancient Greece, when greyhounds were owned by aristocrats and depicted in murals.

In the modern day, the dogs are heavily intertwined with gambling, and a decline in betting revenues has been a major factor in its fall. Though the gambling industry as a whole is in rude health – the number of online betting accounts grew from 17m in 2014 to over 37m in 2024 – the simple fact is that you can bet on more things more easily than ever before. Greyhound gambling has been relegated to the paddock.

“Revenue from bookmakers is declining year-on-year and has done for a number of years,” explains Mark Moisley, the commercial director of the Greyhound Board of Great Britain (GBGB). ​“If it continues at the rate it’s going, we’ll have issues sooner rather than later.”

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For Tony Race, racing is in both his name and nature. He trained greyhounds for more than 25 years, and believes the decline of the sport has been long in the making. He says that with revenues shrinking, even the winnings from the sport’s biggest races ​“barely touches the sides”. Meanwhile, the rising cost of everything has made it prohibitively expensive for trainers to make a living out of the sport, causing many to step away. It’s creating a kind of bottleneck: without the trainers to supply the dogs, there are fewer meetings, fewer stadiums, and fewer pound coins in the kitty.

Yet it’s not just the fans or trainers that are disappearing from the sport – its entire infrastructure is under threat. Race explains how specialist greyhound vets that he used to work with have moved to Australia because there’s more work over there. There also used to be at least three monthly magazines dedicated entirely to greyhound racing, all of which have since disappeared. Now, the winner of the most prestigious greyhound race in the country, the Greyhound Derby, struggles to get any column inches anywhere.

Though stadiums like Owlerton are still well-attended, the vibe is very different from the one Race remembers. It’s very much targeted at stag dos, work parties and birthday celebrations – those who are happy to consign the races to the backdrop rather than the forefront of their night. The archetypal greyhound fan has almost all but disappeared from view.

Race stepped away from the sport in 2016, and admits it’s sad to witness the decline of a sport that has given him so much. ​“I do feel sad about it. Me and our kid talk about it often – summat always crops up from days gone by. But in this day and age I don’t really take any interest in it whatsoever. It is sad because I’d like to see it booming.”

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There are, however, plenty of others who wouldn’t. Greyhound racing has been criticised by animal rights groups for several years now, citing the high number of racing injuries and deaths, inhumane conditions in kennels and low rehoming rates of retired greyhounds. There are also concerns over the sport’s close links with gambling and the associated ills that come with it.

In a statement given to Huck, the Alliance Against Greyhound Racing warned of the danger that ​“repetitive racing on oval tracks” poses to greyhounds, stating that: ​‘No amount of welfare regulations will stop the injuries from racing on oval tracks.” They suggest a ​“lack of significant improvement in the welfare of racing greyhounds” and the low level of industry funding for rehoming schemes as key reasons for their opposition.

Arguments to ban greyhound racing altogether have been gathering pace in recent years. In 2025, bills were introduced in both Scotland and Wales that sought to make greyhound racing illegal, though the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport has firmly ruled out a UK-wide ban, pointing to the ​“joy that it brings to many, many people in our country and the economic contribution that it makes”. Plenty think regardless that the sport’s days are numbered – but those within it aren’t willing to give it up without a fight.

“There were some issues and we don’t hide away from that fact,” says Moisley. ​“But animal rights groups get their message out there because they have a bigger budget than us. Unfortunately, the messaging they get out there is almost entirely incorrect,” quoting figures that suggest track injuries and deaths have both significantly decreased since they published a new Greyhound Commitment in 2018 and introduced a ​“world-leading” welfare strategy in 2022. The measures in the strategy include an increased number of stadium visits from safety experts, more GBGB visits to residential kennels and greater investment in the board’s Greyhound Retirement Scheme. Greyhound rehoming figures have also increased in that time.

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Moisley suggests that the sport’s precarious financial footing makes it an easy target. ​“If you ask professionals in horse racing, they would say they don’t have anything to compare to our welfare strategy,” he suggests. ​“Horse racing has more injuries per race and more fatalities per race than we do. But the reason they’re not going after horse racing is because it’s better funded. So they’re coming after what they see as an easy target. But we’re far from that.”

It doesn’t seem farfetched to also suggest that horse racing faces less scrutiny because it is historically an upper-class sport for society’s elites. It has long enjoyed support from the royal family and Royal Ascot – where 32 horses have died since 2013 – is attended by the King and Queen every year. It feels unlikely that they would be seen down at Owlerton, donning flatcaps, on a Saturday night. 

Another threat facing the sport is from property speculators. Stadiums around the country have closed down at a rapid rate, but those located in major urban centres have suffered the most: there’s now just a single greyhound track in Greater London, in Romford, and none anywhere near central London.

Despite these competing threats, Moisley is optimistic about the sport’s future. One new track opened last year, and the sport is undergoing modernisation behind the scenes to bring it into the 21^st century. Venues such as Owlerton and Yarmouth remain well-attended, offering a possible blueprint for the sport if it is to survive. That’s only going to be possible if the shrinking but still tight-knit greyhound community continues to keep the sport’s cogs turning.

Back at Owlerton, it doesn’t feel like there are too many concerns over the future of the sport. And it’s easy to see why it’s so popular here. For £12 you can get entry to the stadium, a portion of fried chicken and chips, a free drink and two free bets. Given that we’re living through what feels like a permanent cost of living crisis, an affordable night out like this will always appeal to the stadium’s predominantly working class punters.

If greyhound racing does continue its decline then it’ll be a big loss to people like Race, for whom the sport has been so important to over the years. Greyhound racing will mark its centenary year in 2026, but he wouldn’t bet on it celebrating another 100 years.

“Within five years I don’t think there will be any racing at all. I think that’ll be it,” he says. ​“It’s saddening because as I say, it’s been a big part of my life. At one time the top trainers made a really good living out of it – but I think them days are gone.”

Nick Harland is a freelance journalist. Follow him on Bluesky.

Liam Benson is a photographer and design & marketing specialist.

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