An Irish businessman has put in the largest offer yet for New York's major racing tracks.

Karl O'Farrell, chief executive officer of Australian betting company Capital Play, has put in a $1.8 billion (€1.37 billion) bid for the Saratoga, Belmont and Aqueduct tracks and for lucrative slot machine rights at Aqueduct and Belmont.

Saratoga is home to the Travers Stakes, the oldest thoroughbred horse race in the US and the main attraction of the six-week Saratoga summer racing meet.

Belmont on Long Island and Aqueduct in Queens service the regular New York racing fans.

However, Capital Play was disqualified from bidding on the franchise earlier this year after the company failed to submit a $1 million bond in time, a factor which Mr O'Farrell has said is a mere technicality.

He is now appealing directly to the New York state legislature in Albany to allow Capital Play to put in an official bid.

Mr O'Farrell, who returned to Dublin for Christmas, is asking Albany politicians to reverse the disqualification decision made in November by the racing task force controlled by New York governor George Pataki.

The Capital Play plan proposes an end to the bitter dispute between off-track betting companies and the racing tracks about control of New York's betting industry.

Under the plan, off-track betting companies would control on- and off-track bets.

Mr O'Farrell, a graduate of Wharton business school at the University of Pennsylvania, said he also hoped to build new hotels at the Aqueduct and Belmont hotel and attract younger betters, modelled on the successful revival of the Australian horse racing industry.

While largely unknown in the US, Mr O'Farrell previously ran an online business for one of Australian's best known family-run gambling firms and has had a high profile in the Australian gambling industry since he took over at Capital Play in 2001.