i think your the one who needs to get our more , how much time to you spend on here telling other ppl to do just that !!

Sleep and well - interesting combination of words for an insomniac like me ! Thanks though

I have to empty my humidifier every hour ... else I would get out more, so I encourage the rest of you on my behalf

and yes a humidifier is a bit like a colostomy bag ... except it draws water out of the walls and other damp patches (thats to hopefully forstall any jokes about bags and water etc)

jaypr: I'm with you. On Thursday and Friday I sent emails, to this effect, to several BB bods including th BB Editor, BB Aled at Radio One and BBLB - I have yet to receive a reply from any of them.

It seems that BB took little action to ensure that the integrity of the evction vote was ensured. How many of Spence's 1,509,818 votes were placed by people inadvertantly thinking they were responding to the 'you have won a cruise' style scam? I'm a Spence fan but if he had been evicted fairly I would have been disappointed but not furious - AS I AM NOW.

There are rules and regulations governing 'cash-prize' competitions and it seems to me that have been undermined if not broken. Through blatant inaction BB may have allowed themselves to walk into a legal minefield. Spence should consider his legal options very carefully -ALTHOUGH HE SHOULD NOT HIRE PJ TO REPRESENT HIM!!!

Until the last view days Spence was, by any objective standards, favourite to win. A RIGGED vote has denied him his chance of potential success AND 70 GRAND.

Everytime I think of the huge pay-offs that the scammers/gambling syndicate(s) will collect later today I become more angry jaded towards BB.

Knowing the extent of the distortion and corruption of the vote BB should have voided the eviction process for this week. They could have arranged a (freephone) double eviction for later in the series if they were concerned about reducing the number of the HMs within the available time-frame. The number of HMs wouldn't have even been an issue if BB had not chosen (against public opinion) to replace Sandy. Without Tim BB would have had valuable breathing-space in which to respond consrtuctively to eviction rigging probs.

***If there's a BB4 BB must invest in some word recognition system for voting. It may take slightly longer to vote but it would ensure that people were not conned into innocently voting an rigging/gambling scam. Had that system been in operation this week I would be willing to bet that the name Alex whould have been on many more lips than that of Spencer. Under this system it would imposs for nearly 1/2 million votes to be cast in the last 3mins of voting. I SUSPECT THAT KIND OF HUGE SURGE OF VOTING IS IMPOSS. UNDER ANY SYSTEM,YET BB CLAIM IT HAPPENED.

Davina 8.31/2ishpm - two and quarter million (2,250,000) votes cast . 1HM at 55% the other at 45%. - 3min of voting to go!

8.35pm - voting closes.

Davina 10.01pm outside BB house about get Spence - two and three quarter million (2,750,000) votes cast.

PLUS WITH APPARENTLY 5OO,000 VOTE REGISTERED IN THE LAST 3MINS THE % FOR EACH REMAINS THE EXACT SAME AS THOSE ANNOUNCED BY DAVINA AT THE START OF THE 8-30PM SHOW.

A friend of mine who is an actuary is currently staying up (despite having a wedding to go to tomorrow) to calculate and puzzle through this hgighly improbable voting pattern. Is this a case of BB "Stastistics, damned stastistics, and LIES" (think this was Oscar Wilde but I could be wrong ) PLEASE, PLEASE don't let me have just done a Jade!!!

HAVE RABBITED FOR TOO LONG - I'm a forum virgin but i hpoe I'll soon get the hang of 'short & sweet'. Bear with me and any advise appreciated.

AND FINALLY ( thank God you say).

I'm not a litigious person by nature but I hope Spence sues BB - email this advise thi if you agree.

Anyone know the movie 'Quiz Show'? nuff said!!!

I know this is Big Brother, but it’s not Big Brother, as in government BB, so why do people continue with these conspiracy theories and just except that two really popular people came head to head and Alex won, even PJ called it as the clash of the titans, and he saw that from inside, every week people keep on about a huge bookmaking scam whenever someone they like get voted out, just how much do these people actually know about betting, and to back this up I propose that people look at various popularity polls, where voting is free and no money passes hands, and as for someone saying Alex is hated by everyone in the house, I can’t see it myself. There are only two people that dislike him the same two that have disliked him from the start, hats off to Spencer, even he said he thought Alex was a funny and interesting person, as for Spencer going I think it’s a pity they came up against each other so soon, as I believe there are still people in the house that should have gone within the first two weeks.

Is everyone coming down with “Kate syndrome”, can't you just accept that Alex is still in the house because there are a lot of people out there who like him for what he is.

It seems whenever anyone leaves it is put down to a "betting sting", which I find a ludicrous accusation. No bookmaker would accept any sort of sizeable bet on an event which is decided by a phone vote and when you consider around 2.5 Million votes were registered, the outcome would be impossible to influence making any sort of “sting” unfeasible.

I also don't see anything suspicious in price changes and market suspensions, this is only the bookmaker protecting their interests. What do you expect them to do when the second favourite is suddenly leading every poll there is and seems to have won over general public opinion. If a team takes the lead in a football match would you expect their price to stay the same?

Thank goodness for a couple of voices of sanity at the end there!

I can tell you quite categorically that there are no "gambling syndicates" or anything else involved in BB voting. The amounts involved are miniscule compared to a bookmaker's turnover on any other event - and the idea that it would be worth anybody's while to make a bet and then vote even a couple of thousand times is quite frankly ludicrous!

The BB betting market is so volatile precisely because it is such a small market. Individuals can do quite well at it by being slightly more clued-up than the average bookmaker. Nobody - certainly no organised group - can make a vast fortune!

It's all just tabloid newspaper nonsense. Trust me.

Tabloids, nonsense?
Surely not

Jack
Times man

You hope Spencer sues BB for what?

jack

Personally I think ch 4 have screwed up the process altogether. One of the best bits of BB1 was watching the nominations effectively "live", which was really excting. Then the next day you watched their reactions, again seeing it for the first time.

Now we have E4, the suspense has gone. The nominations should be live on Ch 4 (or near enough). So should the revelations to the housemates.

As for the betting syndicates - whether they do or do not exist, there seems to be no suspense any more. It was somehow made obvious every week who was going to be evicted - and somehow the outside bet had become the obvious favourite by the time the votes were announced. I quite like the idea of just a two-hour period for votiing - worked well for pop idol.

By the way, didn't Spencer run rings around Davina last night?

One more thing - why is the pre-eviction show so dull now? Last year they interviewed families and stuff like that.

I am sorry, but I disagree, very few people would tolerate Alex in the real world!
but maybe they just enjoy making other people suffer his inane attitude.
As with the Alison vote, channel4 have screwed up bigtime, 2.7m votes were cast, most of them by a small minority of Gamblers.
I know of one person that does not watch BB but is a professional Gambler, he thinks that BB3 is the greatest business oportunity to come for sometime, he will bet on the more popular HM such as Spencer v Alex Spencer was the more popular HM.
Odds for Alex were not very good, Spencers Odds were 3:1 on Tuesday, Betting was closed on Wednesday,
This Bloke placed a £1000 bet on Tuesday for Spencer to be evicted & spent £800 on Voting, he made 3,200 votes and had another £200 that he would use to boost, if the need arised, he will be collecting £4000 from the bookies.
I don't know whether he did boost his votes with the reserve but a minimum of 3,200 peoples votes for Alex were cancelled out by one man this week and that is a fact.

I'm sure they could just stop you voting from the same phone number more than once in a set amount of time. Maybe say one vote per number every 10 mins. That would make it a lot harder to rig the vote.

And for anyone who with-holds their number, you could easily use a mobile or phone box if your're that desperate to vote. Maybe C4 would lose some revenue from lost voting but at least we'd have a clean contest.

On the other hand do C4 really care where the votes come from? Until the public get really annonyed with the betting scams C4 are earning a fortune, so why try to stop it?

I was thinking about these supposed 'gambling syndicates'. I have absolutely no idea of the size of bets that people have been putting on, but it's entirely possible that there has been large scale fixing going on.

It's very unlikely that one man will walk into William Hill with 4 million pounds stuffed into his back pocket, put that 4 million on a housemate with 5/4 odds (or is it 4/5?), the housemate wins because he peronally voted 2,000,000 times, and he walks out with 5 million pounds, making a neat £500,000 profit.

It's far more likely that 1,000 people walk into William Hill, put bets on of £4,000 each at 5/4 (or is it 4/5? ), each spend £500 on phonecalls or text making 2,000 eviction votes, and thus bump up the number of eviction votes by 2,000,000 making that housemate a certain evictee.
They'd be guaranteed to make £500.
I think the odds were even better than that at first, particularly with Spencer being the dead cert to win BB.

Don't assume that it couldn't happen just because it seems implausible; betting is big business, especially amongst the rich. Gambling circles are very well co-ordinated. You've probably seen people talk on these very forums about odds and betting more than they've talked about the housemates

Do I think it actually happened? No.
Do I think it could happen? Yes.

How can they dictate who is nominated unless BB instruct the HMs to vote a particular.

Interesing conspiracy theory platelet - so much for reality tv.

The distortion of the Spencer vote did not come so much from the bookies odds etc. it came from the tactics used by the gambling sydicate(s) to rig the vote. Even BB issued notices about scam watch as lots of people received text or email say they had won a prize and to dial a number to claim it . By the time they heard Davina thanking them for voting for Spencer it was too late the vote was registered. How many of the votes for Spencer were inadvertant. This is no conspiracy theory and is easily verified form other on-line sources.

sorry to clarify, I was replying to the suggestion that all votes were done as per the first week, with the public vote setting the nominations, and the housemates picking the evictee, as a was to remove the syndicates influence, and saying that they would still be able to rig it, by stopping the housemates from getting the chance to choose alex at all.

All you suggestion are quite plausible, you also answered why it has not been implemented, Channel4 are in it to make money, some bookies are considering stopping the betting on BB owing to the losses that they are having with syndicates & professional gamblers.

It has to be noted that the odds given to a particular HM is calculated by their popularity before nominations, Alex at the time of the nominations was given 2:1 odds that could remain in the house, whilst Spencer was given 3:1 against being evicted, the professional gamblers & syndicates will go for spencer as the odds were better, 24hrs later the odds had reversed as the bookies saw what was happening and tried to recoup some of their expected losses.

I know some of these professional gamblers and have been told by one of them personally, that he expects to be able to makes about £25,000 from the series, he started with £1000 on week 1 and has now profited (before last nights eviction) £4,800 by voting the most popular HM out, he was surprised with the Lee Vote he could of saved £300 in calls to get him out.

I think we will see more record votes being broken as BB3 continues, but the public vote now holds very little real value anymore, when probably 50-60% of the voting is by professional gamblers and syndicates who have found the way to easy money.

Can I nominate all the conspiracy theorists to be entered into Room 101?

Please

u guyz r such bores. y wudnt u wnt 2 vte.

Making a few bob on BB is easy, I know because I've made a nice profit cos it's decided by the public, it hasn't got a damn to do with who you like best, but who has got the best odds. You spend your 25p+ and I collect it later that week.

while i know that i'm taking this TOO seriously the way that Fridays eviction was effected by scams has really incensed me and risks spoiling bb for me. if/when alex becomes the target others on threads who have slagged off conspiracy theorists will change their tune.

i figured your ? deserved a serious answer even though it's probably time to get over it and move on to next week.

1. under the Lotteries and Amusements Act it the rules of a prize competition are the sole responsibility of the promoter but they are then open to implementation under the law on deception etc it they condone or do not actively seek to ensure that no deception has taken place.

2. under the Control of Misleading Advertising Regulations it is an offense to promote an unlawful prize competition. The scammers used non-existent competitions ti lure people into voting for Spencer. They are liable for prosecution if caught and bb could be held liable after the fact for condoning an illegal act by accepting the scammed votes.

3. there are also several articles under telecommunications acts which could apply - BUT EVEN I'M GETTING BORED WITH THIS.

Spencer should give some thought to potentially being conned out of £70,000 but i admit the areas is very subjective - make a nice addition to the scandal though.

Deerds

well, anyone nominated against Jade is likely to have very long odds - so will they get evicted?

I think this could be the real tester of the power of the gamblers, as Jade is the least popular housemate, so would be the expected evictee.

If one HM sues C4, then surely ALL the HM's who get voted out have to sue C4, because potentially any one of them COULD have won. I'll admit that the system does need some work, but something as simple as the caller ID or Davina saying "Press * to confirm your vote for...." should deal with the bulk of the abuse.

Okay, so you meant sue for breach of contract then?
That's what I meant: sorry if you felt obliged to look up the relevant law :, I just didn't know what sort of Action you thought Spencer could have had.

I don't know anything about any "scams" so I'll not comment on that. The reference to the Gambling Syndicates and a fake prize etc that you allege: under that it wouldn't be Spencer who could sue, it would be the people who entered the contest.

The only action, as far as I can tell, that Spencer could (even theoretically) consider would be for Breach Of Contract in that he had entered into a contract with Channel 4/Endemol/whoever. But you'd have to look at how the HMs were approached, what have they signed etc.

Basically though, if all that they'd be led to believe was that there would be ONE winner, and the losers are decided by whatever means etc, as long as those conditions hold true, then the contract has been adhered to.

The "contract" itself seems so vague as to be difficult for Endemol to actually *Breach*. I suppose if they just starting evicting people willy-nilly, that would be BOC.

Thanks for getting back to me though, you didn't need to go to so much trouble.

I wonder if any sort of duty of care applies....

jack

duty of care applied to me also, although that,s a really tough subjective one.

i've probably laboured this all too much anyway.

guess i'm just still too optimist that natural justice should continue to prevail somewhere. that probably makes me too naive to be commenting about taking suit.