America’s Cup: Punters now behind Oracle to win

If you are like most, following sport is about emotion, cheering for your team until the end. But for some, it’s about the money, and right now the Kiwi punters have abandoned their team and are backing Oracle to win the America’s Cup.

Here’s a report that was published Monday morning (before Race 16) in the New Zealand Herald…

Starting with a $10,000 splash, the TAB (sports betting site) took 30 bets in a row on Oracle to win the America’s Cup Sunday morning and the money backing an American victory continued to pour in all day. Before Sunday’s racing, Oracle was still a rank outsider to win the Cup at $7. But by Sunday evening the odds of the Americans completing one of sport’s great comebacks had shrivelled to $2.85.

Once unbackable favourites, the Kiwis drifted to $1.37 to win the one race needed to lift the Cup.

The Americans also start firm favourites to win Monday’s first race (which they did) despite Team New Zealand having the favoured port entry at the start. Oracle will start the race $1.65 favourites, while Team New Zealand are $2.10 outsiders.

“We have gone from a situation where the shortest price Team New Zealand were to win a race was $1.09 and now they are $2.10 outsiders,” TAB yachting bookmaker Kieran McAnulty said.

Oracle’s favouritism was as much a reflection of the amount of money bet on them as their dominance on the water Sunday as they closed the score to 8-5 in the race to nine wins (which is now 8-6 after their Race 16 win).

“It’s not only the likely outcome, it’s also where the money is going,” Mr McAnulty said. “The big story here is that we are just taking so much money on Oracle. It is mayhem here.”

The TAB stands to make a huge loss if Oracle does complete the fairytale comeback. – Full story