Boat Race 2010 – Will a Boat Sink?
The 156th Oxford-Cambridge boat race takes place tomorrow in London. Oxford are favored at roughly -250, but picking the winner isn’t the most interesting play.
Pinnacle has a line (below) for “Will a Boat Sink?” currently at -1650. I know most of you don’t enjoy betting large favorites, but a boat has only sunk 5 times in 156 races and none in the past 30 years. The flip side is that the odds opened at 33-1 and have been cut almost in half thanks to poor weather being forecast and mildly heavy betting on the sinking side. 
I think I’ve written about this before, but rowing was THE sport, similar to NFL in the United States now, in the 19th century, but it’s popularity waned as gambling scandals and fixing became more and more common. There is much to read here (rowinghistory.net) but these two stories stood out:
Another tactic used by the unscrupulous backers was to try to influence the betting odds. Faking an illness just prior to a race is one way to boost the odds and make for a bigger pay-out after the unexpected victory, but there were other ways as well. Cleaver wrote in The History Of Rowing about a race between the Australians, Harry Searle and Julius Woolf, on the Parramatta River in 1866.
Woolf had been defeated by Stansbury a fortnight earlier, so he was not much in favor with the betting public, and it looked as if Searle’s backers would have to be content with the bare prize-money. John Spencer [Searle’s manager] refrained from betting at all before the start of the race, and instructed Searle to hang back and “feel” Woolf in the early stages, and, as soon as he was sure of his man, to shake his head from side to side, but not to go to the front until he got a signal from Spencer, who was in a boat following the race.
The race had barely started when Searle’s head was seen to wobble violently. This caused loud laughter among those who had never seen Searle race before. Meanwhile, his commissioners were snapping up every bet offered, with Woolf still leading and going great guns. Suddenly Spencer waved a red handkerchief and in a hundred yards Searle was a length ahead, and the issue beyond doubt.
The Town of Barrie [Canada] was holding its second annual regatta on Kempenfeldt Bay and had invited an American, James H. Riley, to row against Hanlan. The champion [Hanlan] had agreed, against his better judgement. He was not in good condition after his recent trip across the Atlantic, and halfway through the course Hanlan had to stop. Riley was stunned and refused to cross the finish line. He had obviously placed bets on Hanlan and would lose his money if he won the race. The judges were flabbergasted by the whole affair, ruled the race a draw and ordered a re-row. Hanlan declined, preferring to forfeit the prize money.
