Battling Argentinians outsiders with TAB to win World Cup final after Germany's stunning semifinal victory
The Fifa World Cup has finally reached the business end of the tournament, with punters swarming to place their bets on their favourite football team to win.
Yesterday's semifinal match between Argentina and Netherlands reeled in $1.24 million for the TAB - the largest amount Kiwis have bet in thetournament in Brazil to date.
TAB football bookmaker Gary Pearn said people had already started to get excited about Monday's final at 7am, with Germany looking like the clear favourite.
The Germans are at $2.30 to win the World Cup final. Argentina is paying $3.00 and a draw sits at $3.20 after normal time.
"We opened up pretty much straight after [yesterday's] game finished and already you can tell that the weight of the money is going to be very much with the Germans," Mr Pearn said.
"Punters are straight on to Germany, I guess on the back of their very impressive semifinal win [a 7-1 victory], whereas Argentina were pretty sort of bland in comparison - not managing a goal and having to go to penalty shootout, whereas the Germans tore the Brazilians apart," he said.
Mr Pearn could not recall any significant bets on yesterday's match between Netherlands and Argentina and admitted the TAB had "dodged a couple of bullets" thanks to Argentina's win. "Most of the money was on the Netherlands. Right throughout the tournament, the Netherlands have been our worst result."
Argentina fan Juan Tesolin - watching with a large group of fellow countrymen at The Grand bar in central Wellington - saw his team win a tense penalty shootout.
