Reality TV markets are intrinsically riddled with different levels of inside information

Wednesday 14 December 2005 – a landmark date in the betting world. A day when Betfair and its specials markets became frontpage news. The Daily Mirror’s headline read: ‘Xposed – a betting scam that raked in a fortune from reality TV shows such as X Factor has been smashed!’ This was followed by segments on the BBC and ITV news programmes.

Allegedly, a BT worker with access to phone-vote totals on reality TV shows was tipping off four further friends, who were then placing a string of late winners on the betting markets on, say, who would be eliminated each show on I’m A Celebrity. What isn’t clear is whether the people doing this have done anything legally wrong. Corruption in racing will alter the result of the contest, but in the case of the reality TV scam, no viewer who votes is defrauded (their vote still counts), and the end result of the contest will be the same.

Luckily, Betfair didn’t overreact. Instead, it sent out confi rmations that scrapping the reality TV markets wasn’t something on its current agenda. I applaud this fully. Obviously, trading with inside knowledge isn’t good sportsmanship, but you have to keep it in perspective. While something like the London Stock Exchange is a crucial part of our capitalist society, and rightly protected by law, reality TV betting markets are a small, backward oddity, intrinsically riddled with different levels of inside information.

Your McFly’s undone

A number of forumites on Betfair (where I post under the name ‘DJ Sunset’) have been giving me stick this month for seemingly gloating in this column about big winnings. I would like to set the record straight. I’m sure I’ve placed more than £12 million of losing bets in the last three years, and losing is normal for any gambler – a good bet (where you have an edge and bet at an infl ated price) is a good bet irrespective of whether it wins or loses. When challenged to put up my bets beforehand, rather than seemingly champion winners (and forget to mention losers), I told a number of forumites I had £7,000 on McFly to be Record of the Year at average odds of just over 6/4, and recommended that it was a good bet. I may have singlehandedly crashed the entire market across the UK (less than £61,000 was bet in total on the contest on Betfair, much of it traded backwards and forwards), as by the time of the actual contest, McFly were around 8/13 at most bookies and as low as 9/20 with Bet Direct. Unfortunately, McFly were pipped to the post by Westlife and, despite getting value, this time I lost the bet.

Put it in Binary

Finally, I would like to give some credit where it’s due – to the excellent UK bookie BinaryBet.com. This is run by IG Index, for which I used to work. BinaryBet isn’t a beautiful website, but it does have a number of good traders who are willing to lay better prices than Betfair much of the time, with excellent liquidity. If you haven’t got an account, I would recommend opening one, as getting the best possible price for your bets is critical.

Once again, please keep your emails coming to eddy@djsunset.com.