Three stretches of the Australian outback will soon resound to the thunder of horses and the scamper of greyhounds racing through the night on racecourses uniquely dedicated to internet betting.
Punters will not be allowed at the trackside of the remote strips, now being built at Waikerie, Millicent and Port Augusta, in South Australia. The horse and greyhound races will be held under floodlights in front of television cameras beaming the late-night action live over the internet, just in time for British gamblers to place an early morning wager.
The A$30m (£11m) scheme is the brainwave of John Hodgman, who became frustrated by the TV coverage of racing while working in sports television production five years ago.
His company, Teletrak, will stage races on straight courses, enabling the overhead and trackside cameras to stay much closer to the action than they can during public races on circular tracks.
The company says the darkness will produce close-up images ideal for digital com pression and live transmission on the net. The time difference means the races will reach Europe in the morning, when there is currently little live race action to bet on.
The South Australian government approved the development last month, and contractors have just finished the earth-moving stage for a 700m dog track and a 1,600m trotting track at Waikerie.
Teletrak plans to hold the first greyhound and trotting races - in which horses pull light carts - by the end of the year. Thoroughbred races will start shortly afterwards.
"It won't be so much like the charge of the light brigade, more like drag racing," Richard Law, Teletrak's South Australian development manager, told the newspaper the Australian.
Three Australian states refused to have the sites, and the South Australian Democrats led opposition to the scheme in parliament.
"We've had a dramatic expansion of gambling opportunity within South Australia, with no real government responsibility for the consequences of that," their parliamentary leader, Mike Elliott, said.
Although local people will not be able to watch the races at the tracks, the greyhound and trotting races will "create an enormous local attraction" and encourage more gambling in the state, he said.
The meetings are just the latest in a long tradition of wacky races in a country renowned for its love of sports betting. Australia's 16-track camel racing circuit is thriving: the prizemoney for the races, including the Arab Emirates-funded Sheikh Zayed Cup in Sydney, is worth more than A$100,000 (£37,000).
Cane toad contests are big business in north Queensland, where the giant toads are painted and raced. There is a regular lizard race in south Queensland, and Derby, in Western Australia, holds an annual cockroach race.
