The face Macau shows to the world today may be its 29 sparkling casinos, but one of the last links with the city’s gambling past can still be found two miles away from the main strip, in a plastic reproduction of Rome’s Coliseum that stands out amid the dowdy surroundings of its working-class neighborhood. Inside, six sinewy greyhounds stand shivering on an oval race track, waiting for a mud-stained mechanical rabbit to give them something to chase. Even on this Saturday night, most of the red plastic seats at the Yat Yuen Canidrome remain empty. “Before, when I came here, there were so many people you had to stand up to see anything,” says Mr. Wong, a Macanese regular at the track who wouldn’t give his full name. “There are definitely a lot less people now.” Ling Woo Liu (’06) reports as a Hong Kong-based correspondent for TIME.

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