Live betting is in its infancy in this country but is common in the United States, Europe and Australia; indeed, there has been controversy across the Tasman recently over league commentators promoting options during matches.
At the World Cup live options include total points, total tries, next team to score a try, next scoring play as well as how many scrums, penalties and lineouts within a match.
There is even a market on whether the total number of points in a match will be an odd or even number. "Some people bet on anything," says Amon, "often they are not even rugby fans. It is pretty daunting when you see average bets that are equivalent to your yearly salary."
Indeed it sounds a little like man versus machine, or at least Gary Kasparov vs Big Blue as some punters use robots and sophisticated computer software to constantly compare odds across all the bookmaking firms and bet on twin outcomes, relying on big volumes and small margins to make money.
During a match Amon will have one eye on the game; one computer is used for changing odds, another to display current odds and a third to compare the odds offered by other firms. He compares it to the scene in Minority Report, where Tom Cruise's character manipulates holograms on several screens.
As an example, during the New Zealand vs Japan pool match the All Blacks sat at $1.02 for most of the match to be the next try scorers while the outgunned Japanese were at $10. But occasionally, when the Asian side moved into the 22, they would move down to $6.00 as next try scorer.
Amon was never going to follow in his father's footsteps. "I don't know if he wanted us to," says Amon. "He didn't even teach us how to drive."
A promising rugby career was cut short by recurring injuries; being "smashed" by future All Black Chris Masoe was the last straw for a shoulder dislocated several times.
After completing a sports management degree at Massey University, Amon worked for rugby analysis company Verusco, crunching the data that appears on the laptops of the All Black coaches. He then moved to the UK and the position at Ladbrokes. When they discovered his family background, there was talk of him doing Formula One odds as well, but the motorsport guy had been there 40 years and wasn't moving.
He lists a career highlight as taking a £150,000 ($290,000) wager on France to beat Argentina in the opening game of the last World Cup (they didn't), while a definite low was a potential career-threatening mistake in the 2010 Six Nations.
England were playing Wales at Twickenham and ahead by 20 points midway through the second half. In charge of the live betting, Amon meant to adjust the odds on England winning the match down to 1/250 ($1.004) but a loss in concentration saw him post 250/1 instead.
"I got a frantic phone call a few minutes later from someone in the office asking me to check my odds. It wasn't real good for the heart when I realised my mistake."
Thousands of pounds had already been laid by eagle-eyed punters, but Ladbrokes were able to cancel and refund the bets as they could claim it was a genuine mistake.
Not surprisingly, Amon fancies a punt himself and has already lined up some tasty bets with rival companies. He was particularly happy about nabbing Richard Kahui at $21 to be top try scorer, just after he had been named to start in the opening match.
"Most bookmakers in the UK expected him to be back-up centre and he was priced accordingly," says Amon.
"When he was selected for the Tonga match, it was the middle of the night in the UK. Being based here, I switched our prices straight away but a lot of firms in the UK took hours to respond and were caught out."
