In the some people will bet on anything category: In England, they are now betting--and betting fairly serious money--on virtual horse races. That's right, nothing's real, not the horses, not the jockeys, not the trainers; there's no point handicapping. It's basically a video game with the outcome depending on a computer generated random number. People are betting on fake horse racing.

It would seem that anyone with any existing brain cells wouldn't bet a penny or a pence on such a thing and a virtal racetrack would be dismissed as a joke. Not so. The money has been pouring in.

In the latest available statistics, virtual racing was handling 2.8 million pounds a week and bets of as much as 25,000 pounds a race have been made.

"This was started as an opportunity for our customers," said Jennie Prest, who represents the William Hill bookmaking firm. "We are trying to come up with new products all the time. We tried this product and it proved to be popular, so it is still around."

A cooperative venture among the leading bookmaking firms in the U.K., the first virtual track, Portman Park, opened for business in May. "Portman" is an obvious reference to Portman Park, where the British Horse Racing Board, the governing body of English racing, is located. The name is a not-so-subtle reminder to the BHB that the bookies will not take kindly to any attempts to make them pay higher fees for the rights to accept betting on real races. They have ways of fighting back, and virtual racing is one of them.

The virtual races are also meant to fill voids when real racing is cancelled due to weather problems and the minutes between real races for those who so crave action they can't go a good 15 minutes without having a bet. They were supposed to be little more than a diversion.

So they got some computer programmers together and created a data base and Portman Park opened for business. The bettors are given a list of names of horses and their odds. The odds are a reflection of the chances of a particular number, in this case one that represents a horse, of being drawn. If a horse has a 10 percent chance of winning, his price might be 8-1, or something like that.

The bookmakers certainly don't treat it as a joke. The races get good billing on their websites and commentators call the them just as they would any other race. Yes, a horse will be "fighting back on the inside" and another might be "quickening in the straight." In the betting shops, you can watch the the animated horses running across the screen, striving to get to the wire first.

With the success of Portman Park, which offers flat racing, a sister virtual track, Steepledowns, for steeplechasers, was launched in September. It' the same idea, just for jumpers, some of whom actually fall during a race.

Not surprisingly, the purists are outraged.

"What is this abomination? It's a computerised 'race' on which betting is supposedly conducted," wrote Paul Haigh in the Racing Post. "There is no form; no reason to bet on one 'horse' rather than another; not even the pretence that anything at all is involved except the provision of an opportunity for mugs to hand over cash. This isn't animated roulette. It isn't even roulette. It is plain and simple trash."

Ah, but trash sells.

"It's wonderful," a Portman Park bettor told the Racing Post. "I can remember when there were gaps between races and you had to sit and look at the paper and it could be hours before you were broke."

According to George Carrigill of Carrigill Bookmakers, the feedback has been positive. "No twisting trainers...no crooked jockeys...no non-runners and no objections are some of the remarks we are hearing," he said.

Another bookmaker flak, Ladbrokes' Rory Delargy dismissed virtual racing as "a bit of fun."

That's one way of looking at it, but a more perceptive take on virtual racing's success paints a bleaker picture. Betting on horse racing is supposed to be for the cerebral gambler, the one who wants to match his intelligence against his rivals in an attempt to profit. Let the idiots play the slot machines, racing is for those of us with a brain.

That still holds true. Apparently, though, betting on horses also attracts some idiots, and there are more of them out there than we ever imagined. Someone in England figured that out, opened up a fake racetrack and is raking in the money. How sad.