But what were these families and punters actually witnessing? It can be difficult for those watching greyhound racing to appreciate the extent of injuries and deaths to animals. Because races are so quick – as is the turnaround to the next race – there’s no acknowledgement by commentators when an animal is injured or killed, as is common in horse and harness racing, if only because the public actually sees the injury occur in real time.

  One professional gambler told me that, over the four to five years he’d spent watching and betting on the dogs, he must have seen hundreds of dogs injured or killed without knowing it.22 The ignorance was exacerbated, he said, by the way greyhound authorities fudge the figures. He claimed that only dogs euthanised on the track counted towards the official figures; those later put down by vets went unrecorded. Sky Racing, meanwhile, edits out any unwanted footage depicting injuries from the replays punters use to study the form of various dogs.

  Exploiting the punters

  How do greyhound racing authorities and the senior executives of the corporate betting companies process the allegations of animal abuse? How do they maintain their ‘heads in the sand’ approach? According to the professional gambler I interviewed, the attitude of the greyhound racing authorities towards owners and trainers is to ‘keep yourselves out of the headlines and we have no problem with you. If you get exposed, we’ll come and help fix up the problems.’

  Securing high-calibre board members continues to be a problem within the industry because of its poor reputation:

  [R]acing bodies such as GRNSW often struggle to find board members. Greyhound Racing South Australia had a big problem with board members quitting because business partners didn’t want ties to greyhound racing, and GRNSW recently had to change their rules to allow board members to punt to attract better candidates.23

  From the perspective of corporate executives of gambling companies, the attitude is similarly straightforward: ‘If your customers support greyhound racing, why would you care about animal welfare?’24 It’s an industry designed to recruit, encourage and keep habitual gamblers. Professional gamblers ‘know how depraved the industry is’.25

  Obviously, both the authorities and the companies want the industry to stay. But behind this reason is a more calculated one: next to playing the pokies in clubs or pubs, online greyhound betting affords betting companies the most lucrative opportunity to keep punters engaged – and, therefore, to keep them losing the greatest amount of money.

  The professional gambler quoted above maintains that the structure of the industry is designed to appeal to habitual gamblers. Races are broadcast most days of the week; on weekends, up to 12 separate meetings are broadcast from different parts of the country on Sky, with ten to 12 races at each meeting: that’s more than 100 races. In the gambling industry, greyhound racing is referred to as a ‘next to go’ product – the next race starts straight after the last one has finished. And a day’s racing on Sky happens at lightning speed. With each race run over a distance between 288 metres and 550 metres, and with the occasional race up to 730 metres, most races are over in between 17 and 42 seconds. Races commence on Saturdays as early as 8.50 am, when not much else is being broadcast on Sky.

  Teague, writing in the Australian Racing Greyhound in 2021, believed that the industry was set up for ‘mugs in pubs’: ‘greyhound gamblers treat the product like four-legged poker machines … These folk have little or no association with the animals or the nature of the tracks.’26

  The truth was that the Big Gambling companies were fortunate in becoming heavily involved with an industry that was allowed to regulate itself.

  Regulating the sport

  Australia is one of very few countries in the world that permits greyhound racing. At the beginning of 2025, it has 58 active greyhound tracks; by comparison, the United Kingdom has 21 tracks, Ireland has 17 and the United States has two. Mexico had one but it was closed in July 2024. In Vietnam, greyhound racing remains legal but there are no tracks.27 In early 2025 the Welsh government announced that greyhound racing would be wound down by 2026. The ACT is the only jurisdiction in Australia that has banned greyhound racing.

  Lax regulation has been critical to the sport’s boom. In 2009 the New South Wales government changed the legislation governing the industry. Under the Greyhound Racing Act, the industry was allowed to regulate itself. In an extraordinary development, given the activity’s historical links to cruelty, GRNSW was permitted to promote and administer greyhound racing and act as the regulator, with a responsibility to stop and punish any abuses. The act made no specific reference to greyhound welfare and, according to legal experts, conveniently created no requirement for GRNSW to adequately provide for the welfare of the dogs involved in the industry.28

  Under self-regulation, allegations of abuses would be dealt with quietly, without resort to prosecution. As animal welfare critics have pointed out, ‘There have been very few prosecutions within the NSW greyhound racing industry for mistreatment of animals.’29

  In 2000 the industry was investigated by the New South Wales Independent Commission Against Corruption, which established that several officials had accepted thousands of dollars in bribes in exchange for switching dog urine samples. The ICAC criticised the regulatory and promotional aspects of GRNSW.30 But no change was forthcoming.

  Another jolt to the industry occurred in 2012, when David Landa resigned as the integrity auditor for GRNSW, criticising the role as ‘compromised and unworkable’. ‘Leaving a gaming industry without the proper checks and balances – no government does that,’ Landa said, adding that ‘nowhere in the world would the gaming industry be allowed to self-regulate like this’.31

  More criticism followed in 2012 that confirmed Landa’s view. Fairfax Media exposed allegations of race fixing, doping, money laundering and alleged criminal activity in the industry.32 In the same year, the ABC’s 7.30 and its sister program, Lateline, carried separate investigations into doping and the mass slaughter of unwanted dogs.33 One trainer told 7.30 that ‘80 per cent of trainers are looking for something to dope their dogs. Simple as that.’

  A whitewash

  In 2013, and in response to the exposés of the dark side of the industry, the New South Wales government was forced to accept a motion from Greens MP John Kaye to establish an inquiry. Allegations of grim treatment of animals poured forth in most of the 1027 submissions to the inquiry, and from the testimony of those giving evidence to its public hearings.

  Predictably, there was ghastly evidence about the practice of live animals being mauled to death in greyhound training sessions – guinea pigs, rabbits, chickens, kittens and possums. Among those giving evidence was celebrity TV veterinarian Dr Rob Zammit, who said that every time he had spoken out about problems in the industry, he had been ostracised. Names and addresses of those suspected of involvement in illegal live baiting were given to the inquiry. It later emerged that none of these contacts was followed up by GRNSW.34

  The RSPCA was clear in its submission to the inquiry: ‘Overbreeding, high wastage rates [the killing of unwanted dogs], high euthanasia rates and rehoming problems are inherent in the NSW Greyhound racing industry.’35

  However, the 2014 report of the Select Committee into Greyhound Racing in New South Wales proved to be a whitewash. Despite the involvement of John Kaye as deputy chair of the committee, animal welfare concerns were marginalised by those determined to save the industry. The committee was chaired by Robert Borsak of the Shooters, Fishers and Farmers Party. The opening statement of his chairman’s foreword set the tone for the entire report: ‘The greyhound racing industry in this State has a proud history …’ He barely mentioned animal welfare issues, the very reason the inquiry had been established.36

  While the committee did acknowledge the presence of many witnesses with animal welfare concerns, it undertook only a limited examination of these. The committee defended GRNSW’s integrity in this regard: ‘As the peak controlling body of the sport GRNSW has a fundamental interest in animal welfare issues.’37

  It was left to John Kaye’s minority report to set the record straight. In his dissenting statement, Kaye said that evidence received by the committee revealed an industry that is untenable in its current state and characterised by an unacceptably high rate of animals killed; the failure of too many participants to respect the welfare of their dogs; bullying and victimisation of participants who are outspoken in their criticism of GRNSW; and a lack of reliable data collection and public accountability. Kaye added that while the majority report ‘contains a number of useful insights and some recommendations that would result in minor animal welfare and integrity gains, it fails to address the underlying problems of the sector’.38

  The 2014 Legislative Council report was a lost opportunity to clean up the industry in New South Wales – or, in fact, to ban it. Animal welfare issues simmered away – until Hayley Cotton from Animal Liberation and Caro Meldrum-Hanna from Four Corners became collaborators.

  The Four Corners investigation

  In late 2014, Hayley Cotton, an investigator with Animal Liberation Queensland, had a tipoff about ‘something really bad’ happening at a greyhound training property at Churchable, in Queensland’s Lockyer Valley west of Brisbane. The property was owned by Tom Noble, an award-winning greyhound trainer with almost 50 years in the business. In keeping with Animal Liberation’s undercover operations, cameras were installed around Noble’s track. After Four Corners became involved, what emerged from those tapes would shock the nation and precipitate a call to ban greyhound racing entirely.39

  As Cotton later explained to Four Corners, ‘On those tapes was probably the most horrific cruelty that you could ever come across involving dogs and animals.’ Shown in stark detail was a piglet hoisted screaming onto a lure for the dogs to chase as part of their training. A squirming native possum was also shown on a lure being flung around the track 26 times, with dogs chasing, grabbing and mauling the helpless animal. People were caught on the footage laughing while preparing an animal for live baiting.

  At his trial on 15 counts of animal cruelty, Noble’s counsel described him as a ‘community-minded family man who would give you the shirt off his back’, but to critics he was the ‘poster boy’ for a horrific practice. Noble was steeped in a culture of treating animals as objects for human use, and normalised its realities for racing greyhounds. The family man had somehow turned into a monster.40 Noble was banned from the industry for life, along with his wife, and was given a three-year suspended jail sentence. The RSPCA had hoped he would see jail time, to stand as an example to others.41

  The Four Corners revelations sparked widespread community outrage. Calls to ban the industry reverberated in the corridors of power. The Queensland government, led by Labor’s Annastacia Palaszczuk, established an inquiry into its industry, which would deliver a scathing report, as did the New South Wales Liberal government of Mike Baird. Former High Court justice Michael McHugh was appointed in May 2015 to head the New South Wales Special Commission of Inquiry into the Greyhound Racing Industry.

  The truth comes to light

  Governments are loath to appoint official inquiries because they can’t control the outcomes. Premier Baird’s inquiry into greyhound racing was an exception. In appointing McHugh, Baird had chosen a man with a fierce independent streak. The former judge had the instinct of an activist’s approach to the law. He believed in the need for agitators in society, telling a law conference in 2005 that ‘societies need interfering, meddling people that question the rules and practices that most of the community accepts without question’. But he was no animal rights activist. McHugh was known to love racehorses and a flutter.42 However, this inquiry would see him confronted by the widespread abuse of greyhounds.

  The findings from his four-volume report, delivered in June 2016, can only be dealt with briefly here. McHugh found evidence of widespread cruelty in the industry, including live baiting, the mass slaughter of unwanted dogs, widespread injuries occurring because of over-racing, and deliberate over-breeding of dogs to meet the required number of races each year. To cap off a set of devastating but unsurprising findings, McHugh reported that GRNSW had lied to cover up its practices.

  Reviewing the data of greyhound registrations, McHugh found that around 90 000 dogs had disappeared over the previous 12 years – most having been slaughtered. Some were exported to Asia, where they were ‘condemned to a short and brutal life in a jurisdiction without legal protections for animal welfare’.43

  In relation to live baiting, McHugh heard witnesses claim that over 80 per cent of trainers used the practice, although he thought the number was more likely around 20 per cent. But he established that knowledge of the practice was widespread in the industry, including at the most senior levels of GRNSW. In addition to the terror caused to rabbits and other animals involved, McHugh found that live baiting affected greyhounds for the remainder of their lives. Because of its intention of inducing aggressive behaviour, exposure to live baiting meant that dogs could be difficult to rehome since they were at increased risk of acting violently towards other pets and small children.

  McHugh concluded that the industry prioritised commercial interests above animal welfare, resulting in its ‘dark side’ of animal abuse. He argued that these abuses were driven by commercial motives. ‘The greyhound,’ he said, ‘is simply a gambling instrument, no different from a card in a poker game or a handle on a poker machine.’44 He questioned the capacity of the industry to reform itself.

  McHugh’s findings shook the public’s confidence in the greyhound industry. So disgusted was Baird on reading McHugh’s multi-volume report that he announced that the industry would be wound up. There was no alternative, he said. Numerous polls indicated that the vast majority of Australians agreed with him.45

  Baird’s backflip

  In July 2016, Baird succeeded in having a ban on greyhound racing pass the New South Wales Parliament. Three months later, the socially progressive premier caved in to the forces opposing the ban. But the push to overturn Baird’s ban did not primarily come from the industry itself, although New South Wales politicians certainly did hear from grassroots supporters of the sport. Their numbers were small and they weren’t well organised politically. What drove the rejection of the ban was a culture war run by two of Sydney’s most powerful ‘shock jocks’, 2GB’s Alan Jones and Ray Hadley, and The Daily Telegraph, owned by the Murdoch family, which of course had a stake in the gambling industry.

  Together they spruiked a version of class warfare, with an ‘inner city versus the regions’ attack line, along with the ideological belief that small business has a right to operate without government interference. It was all about protecting the ‘battlers’ sport’ and allowing people to become small-time entrepreneurs. Banning greyhound racing was depicted as a war against the working class. Labor’s opposition leader, Luke Foley, ran with the class war argument, accusing Baird of championing a coalition of inner-city Greens and north-shore conservatives.46 Concerns for animal welfare were couched in an argument that the industry deserved a chance to clean itself up.47

  The extent to which people were swayed by the campaign to allow greyhound racing to continue is uncertain, but it helped feed the perception that the Baird government was out of touch with voters, reflected in falling opinion poll ratings. Alarmed at the prospect of defeat in an upcoming by-election in the regional seat of Orange, Baird felt he had to act on the greyhound issue. On 10 October 2016, a shell-shocked Baird faced the media and capitulated to the politics of greyhound racing. He personally apologised for the proposed ban, saying, ‘I’m not trying to sugarcoat it, I got it wrong.’ Opinion polls, though, showed that 60 per cent of the public supported the ban.48

  The government introduced new legislation providing for supposedly tough new penalties for the abuse of greyhounds, along with funding for track improvements and a new oversight body. It was hard to miss the change of direction: instead of banning the industry for repeated and wilful failures of animal welfare, the government was investing in its future.

  The entire saga was a sad reminder that the rights of animals, so long abused, remain simply inconvenient when it comes to the commercial interests of humans. Indeed, Baird’s backdown has cast a long shadow over the nation’s politicians, who have since been reluctant to take on the greyhound industry.

  What happened next?

  After Baird’s backdown, greyhound racing went from strength to strength. It was as if the shocking revelations of cruelty in the industry over the past five years had never taken place.

  As part of his amended greyhound legislation, the Baird government delivered a $40-million package to the industry to improve infrastructure and animal welfare. The greyhound industry and its corporate gambling backers convinced themselves that the industry had embraced animal welfare. It was all systems go. Other state governments stepped up with tens of millions of dollars in direct support for the industry. In 2018 Baird’s Liberal successor, Gladys Berejiklian, announced her government’s initial $500 000 grant for the Million Dollar Chase.

  With the industry booming, government revenue from the industry rocketed to $68 million. In turn, these growing revenues were generated by marketing and promotion of the sport. Ads for online betting services including Ladbrokes, Sportsbet and Tabcorp blitzed the official website, thedogs.com.au. In another commercial boost for the industry, eight wagering operators offered to exclusively sponsor designated greyhound events across New South Wales. Dogs entered their starting boxes wearing coats bearing the names of eight gambling companies. GRNSW’s general manager of commercial and marketing, Nick Babos, explained that it was a ‘strategy to deliver more funds to the industry’.49