For anyone hoping to see an exciting dog race among a sunny crowd of revelers, venturing into the main lobby of the Sarasota Kennel Club is anticlimactic. Where lines of eager bettors should be crowding the dog track's long bank of betting windows, three tellers chat idly with security officers.

The customers are mostly silent, studiously perusing racing forms and glancing over bifocal lenses at the large-screen TVs to see thoroughbred horses approach starting gates at tracks across the country. Occasionally a customer hurriedly approaches one of the facility's touch-screen betting machines to make a simulcast wager and then watches TV again while a satellite beams the image of the horse race-live-into the clubhouse.

Outside, the grandstand and track are quiet and bereft of life, except for a few pacing smokers and an occasional blade of grass reaching through the untended oval's sandy surface.

Once a favorite activity attracting families, retirees and tourists from Tampa to Port Charlotte, a summer day at the Sarasota track is now strangely sedate. The track draws larger crowds when live races run during the busier winter season but, if state statistics are any indication, the subdued atmosphere is becoming more common at venues across Florida.

Over a 10-year span ending with the 2003-2004 season, the total handle, or amount wagered, at Florida greyhound tracks decreased by 39 percent, according to numbers released by the Florida Department of Business and Professional Regulation. That number is misleading, too, since it is buoyed by simulcast dog and thoroughbred racing; betting on live dog races decreased by 62 percent during the same period.

Although a state report on last year's racing season has not been released, the industry's total handle decreased by another 9.5 percent in 2004-2005, according to DPBR spokesperson Kristen Ploska.

Track owners, dog breeders and kennel operators say increased competition from the Florida Lottery, the Internet, Indian casinos and gambling boats unfairly threatens a historic industry that employed almost 5,000 Floridians last year and provided the state with nearly $25 million in total tax revenue.

The industry's critics say dog racing is on life support, and without generous tax breaks from the Florida legislature and new laws allowing additional gaming at the tracks, a sport marred by its cruel treatment toward animals would soon die a well-deserved death.

DOGHOUSE DEMOGRAPHICS The Sarasota Kennel Club is a good example of dog racing's changing fortunes. Despite rapid growth and healthy tourism along the Gulf Coast, the track has seen a significant decline in the amount of money wagered on live dog racing over the past 15 years.

Simulcast betting and a longer racing season have bolstered business during that time, but profits are decreasing. At the same time, expenses have risen dramatically because of the expanded schedule, says Jack Collins, the track's vice president and general manager. Collins' family has owned and operated the facility on Bradenton Road since his grandfather, Jerry Collins, bought it in 1944.

"Since 1988, the Florida Lottery has affected our business a great deal," says Collins. "We used to run in the summertime, to alternate with the track in Tampa and Derby Lane in St. Petersburg. Now, we have live racing five months a year during the winter, when tourists are here, and simulcast racing six days a week, year-round."

One problem leading to the track's dwindling profit margin is this region's changing demographics. Greyhound fans have tended to be older, and many of those who filled grandstands in the 1970s and '80s have died. As the region grows, the proportion of working-age adults increases and rising property values mean new residents are often wealthier than some of the retirees who attended races in the past.

Tourism has also changed since dog racing's heyday. Over the past few decades, visitors have become more interested in the area's cultural and ecological resources than in traditional Florida attractions like dog racing.

"We keep information on the track at the visitors' center, but it doesn't show up in our surveys, except maybe as trace," says Jennifer Egrie of the Sarasota Convention and Visitors Bureau. "In July and August we do get some calls about our horse-racing schedule, but we know those people are thinking of Saratoga, not Sarasota."

RUNAWAY COMPETITION Demographics and tourism may be changing, but Florida residents and tourists are gambling more than ever, says Collins.

"We stress the entertainment aspect of racing, that you can spend $20 over four or five hours here," he explains. "But now, people spend that $20 gambling at just about any gas station or convenience store. Plus, there are Indian casinos and gambling boats all over the state. You're competing against forms of gambling you can't compete with."