The new year kicked off with bookies producing their annual new year novelties. Want to back Osama Bin Laden duetting with Cher? Paddy Power will have the market up before you can say "I Got You, Babe". It's a dumping ground for laughably bad odds and a great PR exercise as newspaper editors like to tickle their readers with a frothy piece on bizarre gambling markets before Parliament returns Christmas break and Ashley Cole gets engaged to Cheryl Tweedy. Or Jose Mourinho.
Nonetheless, bookies are only human (well, barely human) and mistakes are made.
Sporting Odds ran a market on whether or not Brad Pitt and Jennifer Aniston would announce their divorce in 2005. Remarkably, they priced Yes at 5-1.
Any high-profile couple priced at 5-1 would be worth a look, but for a couple who had long been reported to have been on the verge of splitting up (Jennifer appearing in public without her wedding ring, photos of Brad holding hands with Angelina Jolie). The bet was exclusively tipped on Punters' Paradise.
Relationships are always uncertain but it's clear that this was terrific value and the bet came in comfortably. Sporting Odds seem to have bought into the popular idea that newspaper journalists sit around making up stories all day - reacting cynically to news as a substitute for intelligence. It's a device dumb asses use to disguise their stupidity. ("I am a hard-nosed man of the world who does not believe anything, ever").
"Sporting Odds seem to have bought into the popular idea that newspaper journalists sit around making up stories all day - reacting cynically to news as a substitute for intelligence."
The fact is that most news is fed to journalists via the news diary, newswire, official statements and PR agents. When the Sun ran a front-page story on David Beckham meeting with his agent to discuss a move to Real Madrid, William Hill priced him leaving Man Utd at 3.75 - and many were still in denial about him leaving the club he'd supported as a boy.
As I argued at the time, The Sun does not run front page sports stories like this unless they have intelligence very close to the source - usually the player's agent or the player himself. What was clear from this story was that David Beckham wanted the move and it was already established that Real Madrid were interested despite the hilarious protestations of club president Florentino Perez ("Never! Never! Never!")
And relations between Alex Ferguson and Beckham were far from rosy. Everything pointed towards a move that eventually happened but still seemed to take some people by surprise.
It's often your ability to judge what type of news you're reading - solid story or tittle-tattle - that will determine your success on these markets. Place a bet based on an inside back page Sun story and you're on your own. Tottenham Hotspur would have signed half the population of Eastern Europe if every dippy nudge-and-a-wink tabloid filler came to pass, Aston Villa the other half.
It's just possible the Sporting Odds are targeting the Heat magazine demographic in the hope that if they win this bet they will soon be lumping on Tim Henman to win all four Grand Slams (attractively priced at 9-4).
Or maybe they at the tip off from Brad Pitt grandmother he has just appeared in the papers saying that she sure this is just a trial separation and that the two will be reunited.
We say: shut your cakehole grandma. If Angelina Jolie is willing to bang your boy then it's highly irresponsible to stand in her way with all this talk of reconciliation with the granite-jawed fumblefist.
We can only hope that common sense prevails.
Celebrity Big Brother 2005 postscript
Even for a market with a reputation for volatility Celebrity Big Brother was remarkable as lively housemates and interfering producers made for some shocking market moves.
Jackie Stallone traded for small amounts at 900 for second eviction after it was announced that she could not be nominated in her first week. But Big Brother reserves the right to do whatever he damn well pleases and one feminist icon walkout later and she goes from the snowball's chance in hell to a nailed on certainty even when up against John McCririck - who women rate on average as a less welcome visitor then chlamydia. And off she went with with a trumpetty-trump, her face following shortly afterwards by next day courier.
In the final week, the brilliantly sharp minds at William Hill decided to suspend betting based on suspicions of inside knowledge.
"We say: shut your cakehole grandma. If Angelina Jolie is willing to bang your boy then it's highly irresponsible to stand in her way with all this talk of reconciliation with the granite-jawed fumblefist. "
What the inside knowledge amounted to was Dermot O'Leary appearing as a guest on Chris Moyles and hinting that there would be two evictions that night.
42,000 Radio 1 listeners who don't have William Hill accounts start ringing them up asking if they're offering odds on a double eviction. William Hill get scared and pull their non-existent Is There Going To Be A Double Eviction Tonight? market then go bleating to the papers and have their tummies rubbed by sympathetic hacks, happy to have some filler on a slow news day.
A point William Hill might like to take on board: double evictions in Big Brother are about as surprising as a punch-up in ice hockey - they are leaked days in advance and nobody, including William Hill, ever offers markets on them.
The defining irony of this year's Celebrity Big Brother is that 48 hours later Blazing Squads Kenzie was turned over at 1.06 on the final night.
Amounts traded for Kenzie outright winner
1.06 £3,732
1.07 £30,942
1.08 £10,935
1.09 £1,986
1.10 £30,204
1.11 £37,275
1.12 £47,458
1.13 £9,274
1.14 £20,537
1.15 £12,271
Never has the clever money looked so dumb.
BBC
