Rugby World Cup punters spend $1.9m on semifinal

All Blacks v Australia. Photo / Ron Burgin

The All Blacks-Wallabies Rugby World Cup grudge match became the TAB's biggest rugby or football betting event, with punters splurging almost $2 million.

That total is expected to be beaten for this weekend's World Cup final against France.

Punters bet a total of $1.9 million, beating the $1.8 million wagered on last year's soccer World Cup final.

The only sporting event New Zealanders have bet more on was the David Tua-Lennox Lewis world heavyweight title fight, with $2.1 million spent.

But TAB rugby bookie Mark Stafford said last weekend's record could be broken again, in the lead-up to the All Blacks-France final.

The TAB had already received big bets for this weekend's match, including a $15,000 bet and a $20,000 bet, Mr Stafford said.

"Early signs are that the Rugby World Cup final will be bigger again.

"We're seeing very strong turnover for this early in the week and not surprisingly all the money is on New Zealand, who are smoking-hot favourites."

Mr Stafford said the semifinal weekend had been heartbreaking for at least one punter, who put $100,000 on Wales to win against the French.

No one had a bet as big as that in the All Blacks-Wallabies match.

"We sold lots of bets for an Australian win, but they were around $1000 or $500. The biggest loss for the Sunday match was probably $5000. Not too big."

Mr Stafford said he was praying that Ma'a Nonu did not score the first try in the final, as he had become the hot favourite since he scored against the Wallabies. "It'll kill us if Ma'a Nonu gets the first try." The TAB is paying head-to-head odds of $1.08 for an All Black win and $7 for a French upset.

As well as betting hard, almost half the population watched the NZ-Australia game on television.

The match at Eden Park was shown live on TV One, TV3, Maori Television and on the Sky Sport 1 channel.

TV One led the ratings board, with 659,000 people choosing to watch it on the state channel, making up 16.3 per cent of the population, AGB Nielsen figures show.

Sky Sport 1's ratings were only slightly less, at 16.1 per cent, or a total of 653,000.

Around 398,000 people switched to TV3 to catch the transtasman battle - making up 9.8 per cent - while 263,000 people watched on Maori Television.

The figures reflect the number of people, aged 5 years and over, who tuned in to a channel for at least a minute - rather than the average number viewing at any time during the match.

The total number of people who tuned into the match was 1,973,000, a total which came very close to the total reach figure for the match, of 2.2 million viewers.

Other fans followed the semifinal match on radio and live updates on news websites.

There were also those who kept rugby fans around the world up to date, by posting live commentary on networking sites including Twitter and Facebook.

Television ratings also soared across the Ditch.

The Nine Network pulled in 1.78 million viewers for its coverage of the match, with 710,000 viewers from Sydney alone.

Viewer numbers

TV One: 659,400
TV3: 397,800
Maori TV: 262,700
Sky Sport 1: 653,300
Source: Nielsen TAM.