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Coal baron sued forbets in NT courtBy ANDREW CARSWELL

and AMY SPEAR

NATHAN Tinkler — fallencoal baron, one-time billion-aire . . . and a desperatelyunlucky punter.

At the height of his wealthand power, the embattledbusinessman (pictured) wassinking up to $200,000 a beton horse races during aroller-coaster two-year los-ing spree that yielded veryfew winners and left himwith a debt he was unwillingto pay.

In explosive court docu-ments obtained by the NTNews, Mr Tinkler’s elusivesearch for a winner is laidbare, with the punter oftensplurging upwards of half a

million dollars a month withbetting agency Luxbet,predominantly backing hisown horses — and predom-inantly losing.

The failure to pay sub-sequent debts prompted Lux-bet to sue Mr Tinkler in theNorthern Territory SupremeCourt in January this year,chasing unpaid debts totall-ing $179,200.

While the betting recordsshow extensive losses — in-cluding a spectacular 33-betlosing streak over a horrorthree weeks in February2011 where he flushed$260,000 down the toilet —they also show a handful ofbig days out on the punt.

At his local Newcastletrack on March 17, 2011, Mr

Tinkler ban-ked a cool$187,000 bybacking hisown horsesHonourable

Aussie (two bets worth$15,000 at 7/1) and Bare Bear(two bets worth $10,000 at8/1), while he loaded up witha $110,000 bet on his Adul-terer at Moonee Valley onDecember 3, 2010 at tightodds for a payday of $366,000.

However, those wins werefew and far between for therenowned punter, who pre-ferred to bet off-course.

Another two-week barrenspell in April 2011 cost MrTinkler $174,000, while heput a staggering $200,000 onthe table in backing his

Patinack Farm-owned Metal-lurgical at Randwick on Dec-ember 11, 2009. It finishedsecond, and he blew the lot.

It wasn’t just horse racingthat vied for his attention.

He lost $25,000 backingNewcastle to beat the NewZealand Warriors in an NRLmatch on August 13, 2011,while on the same day kiss-ing goodbye to tens of thou-sands of dollars chasingwins at multiple venues.

The court documents showMr Tinkler was granted acredit betting facility withLuxbet of $250,000 on Febru-ary 9, 2009, which was in-creased to $500,000 on May 21,2010 and eventually de-creased to $100,000 on July 26,2012 as his losses mounted.

‘‘From 9 February 2009and until the date of filingthis statement, the defendanthas made payments totalling$864,953 on six separate oc-casions against his bettingfacility,’’ the documentsread. ‘‘On the settlementdate of March 28 2011, the de-fendant owed to the plaintiffthe amount of $179,200. Theplaintiff has made numerousrequests of the defendant forthe amount owed.’’

A report that aired onABC’s Four Corners lastnight alleges Mr Tinkler andsome of his 120 listed com-panies in Australia and Sing-apore have been involved inmore than 50 court actions,sued by creditors, busi-nesses and bookies.

Man chargedafter allegedsexual attackA MAN who allegedly as-saulted and raped a woman,causing her to lose a ‘‘sub-stantial amount of blood’’,faced Darwin MagistratesCourt yesterday.

The man, 41, was chargedwith sexual intercoursewithout consent, aggra-vated assault causingserious harm and aggra-vated assault.

Detective Acting SeniorSergeant Janelle Tonkinsaid police were called toKnuckey Camp, off Vander-lin Drive, in Berrimah, justbefore 2am on Friday andfound the injured 31-year-old victim at the camp.

‘‘St John Ambulance staffstabilised the victim beforetransporting her to RoyalDarwin Hospital,’’ she said.

‘‘The alleged offender . . .was found about an hourlater hiding in the busharound the camp.’’

The alleged offender hasbeen remanded in custodyand will appear in courtagain via video link onSeptember 23.

NT Jeepers founder Andy Sawka, left, and Ray De Koster are passionate about their Jeeps Picture: DANIEL HARTLEY-ALLEN

Jeepers,they lovetheir carsBy XAVIER LA CANNA

ANDY Sawka knows allabout Jeep thrills.

As the founder of a newclub in Darwin for peoplepassionate about Jeeps, MrSawka wants to hear fromanyone who shares his loveof the off-road vehicles.

‘‘I think they are a goodunique vehicle and they arethe most accessorised ve-hicle in the world,’’ he said.

‘‘You can get more bolt-onparts for a Jeep than for anyother car.’’

Every other state and terr-itory in Australia has a Jeepclub, but until the start ofthis year the Northern Terr-itory was missing out.

Known as the NT Jeepersthe small group of enthusi-asts now meets up and oc-casionally goes out on roadtrips to places such as theAdelaide River or LitchfieldNational Park.

‘‘Anyone passionate aboutthat four-letter word Jeep iswelcome,’’ Mr Sawka says.

The first Jeeps rolled offthe production line in 1941,making them the world’s ol-dest off-road vehicle.

If people want to reach theclub they can check out theNT Jeepers Facebook pageand shoot them a message.

Scene from sci-fi flick coming soon to your own smartphone

The billboards use facial rec-ognition software as seen inthe movie, Minority Report

By JOHN ROLFE

ADS will soon target peopleas they walk past storesthey’ve bought from before— just like in the futuristicTom Cruise blockbuster,Minority Report.

‘‘That was not a pipedream,’’ said Sam Yip, seniorresearcher at Telsyte, whichanalyses how technologyaffects consumption.

In the 2002 sci-fi flick, set 40years from now, billboardsdeliver personalised pitchesto would-be customers afterscanning their eyeballs.

However, director StevenSpielberg could not haveknown how the world wouldfall for smartphones — andthe opportunity they wouldcreate for advertisers.

Already internet searchengines such as Google serve

us ads based on our browsinghistory. And now, Mr Yipsaid, the race is on to perfecttechnology that would allow‘‘real-time push deals’’ viaour smartphones.

It wouldn’t be long beforeHollywood fiction becamefact, he said.

Mr Yip made the predic-tion in response to theworld’s largest discount vou-cher site, Groupon, introduc-

ing into Australia a newservice driven by a sophisti-cated computer algorithmthat tailors each customer’slist of ‘‘daily deals’’ based onbuying history, personalcharacteristics and location.

The algorithm is ‘‘like aliving thing’’, said GrouponAustralia CEO AlistairVenn. Over time it will get‘‘smarter and smarter’’, MrVenn said, as it learns more

about the likes and dislikesof each customer.

‘‘We want people to wakeup in the morning and lookat their email and say, ‘Howdid Groupon know I wantedto buy that?’,’’ Mr Venn said.

But Telsyte’s Mr Yip said:‘‘The consumer won’t actu-ally know they are gettingtargeted deals.’’

Mr Venn denied the serv-ice was ‘‘Big Brother-ish’’.