From The Australian:

Rumours spark rush to back Roosters fall
By Peter Kogoy, Brendan Cormick and Ray Gatt
June 30, 2004

A TALKBACK caller to a Sydney radio station yesterday morning triggered an avalanche of betting interest from punters around Australia on the NRL ladder leaders, the Roosters, to win this year's wooden spoon.

Betting was suspended by outlets in NSW, Victoria, Queensland and the Northern Territory after the Roosters were backed in from odds of 500-1 to 40-1.

TAB Ltd's fixed-odds spokesman Glenn Munsie told Radio 2KY breakfast program listeners that on Monday a punter had placed $100 on the Roosters at $501 to claim the wooden spoon.

A subsequent talkback caller to program hosts Terry Kennedy and Richard Freedman said the mystery punter had placed the bet having learned of an alleged salary cap breach.

Of 40 bets on the wooden spoon in early betting yesterday with the NSW-based SportsTAB, 39 were on the Roosters.

Betting was suspended at 11.46am while TAB Ltd investigated the plunge.

In the first hour after betting on the wooden spoon was restored at 4.14pm, the TAB took a further 51 bets, 50 on the Roosters.

"We wouldn't write 80 bets in a week on the wooden spoon," Munsie said.

It is mathematically impossible for the Roosters – who have won 11 of their 14 games – to finish at the bottom of premiership table. Unless, that is, they are stripped of their points for a breach of the salary cap, as was the case in 2002 when title favourites the Bulldogs were stripped of 37 points and finished last.

Bookmakers paid out on the result.

NRL chief executive David Gallop went on the front foot over the Roosters rumour, denying the club was under the microscope.

"There is no special investigation. Every club in the competition gets investigated on a regular basis and is monitored throughout the year," Gallop said. "As far as the league is concerned this rumour is a result of someone trying to place a bet."

Roosters chief executive Brian Canavan said his club had handed audit documents to the NRL in March, and said the league had no problems with the club.

"There's no inquiry into the club affairs," Canavan said.