Irregular betting on Goal of the Season competition
Bluesquare bookmakers have suspended bets on the BBC’s Match of the Day Goal of the Season competition. This is due to 400 bets totalling £10,000 being placed on Emmanuel Adebayor’s goal against Spurs in the space of just four hours. Bluesquare have said they normally take around £5,000 worth of bets on a goal of the season in a week.
Befor the flurry of bets on Adebayor, the Arsenal striker was third favourite at 9/2 with Bluesquare but afterwards he had been reduced to clear favourite at 1/5.
Bluesquare fear that a BBC insider has been tipping off punters of the result of the Goal of the Season competition.
Bluesquare’s spokesman Alan Alger said, “We are not saying any of the Match of the Day team are responsible, but the market seems to suggest that the result has been leaked somewhere.
“The number of bets we were taking on Adebayor was compa-rable to the amount we were taking on the Champions League final. It was crazy.
“Even when we cut his odds to 1/5, people were still betting on him. In our experience punters only bet like that when they know the result.”
“We had Christiano Ronaldo’s free-kick against Portsmouth as the favourite, followed by his back-heel against Aston Villa, but we will be amazed if Adebayor doesn’t win it now.”
The winner of the competition was decided over a week ago by pundits including Alan Hansen, Alan Shearer and Lee Dixon. The result is also known to some of the BBC’s production staff and will be announced on Saturday lunchtime’s Football Focus programme.
A BBC spokeswoman said, “The panel made their decision last Wednesday in accordance with our rules. We have no evidence to suggest there has been a leak but if there is evidence, we will investigate.”
The BBC has recently had a series of competition phone-in scandals and they must hope that the result of the Goal of the Season competition has not been leaked.
The BBC are currently in contact with Bluesquare about the affair.
The competition has now closed. Viewers who correctly guess the goal of the season as chosen by the pundits will go into a draw for the chance to win a pair of tickets to any Premiership match.
|
