I was just thinking, if it wasnt for the odds, I wouldnt have a clue who was going to be evicted on most weeks. I have no idea why Tania was the odds on fav when up against Steph and Nush for instance, or that Gos would go against the 2 girls (except that he was clear fav with the bookies). I still possibly wouldnt have realised Cam would win it in the final week.

The bookies odds are wasting it from an external viewpoint. They dont have any effect on the show of course. But Steph was surprised Gos and Tania went whereas we knew. Cam worried that Lisa might not go.

The odds ruin the suspense for us.

and how do the bookies set the odds? Leaks - approved or not ? - and the more reliable polls (not the DS ones).....

Even if you banned them (which you can't) you would still have the previous votes to extrapolate from - Cameron was a good bet when he beat Jon and Fed unless you saw some reason for the masses to return and start voting for Ray or Scott or Nush. Cameron was a dead cert when he beat Nush by a wide margin.

I forgot about polls (though the DS polls would shock us every week if it was all we had to gauge the evictions on )

it was just a thesis

knowing the outcome is obvious to us but it would be better without these indicators cos then we would be in suspense maybe, and more excited about BB overall.

A bit like a football manager will be extremely excited about a 0-0 draw in which his tactics were to ruin the game. For the fans its boring but for the manager its nail-biting.

I know what you are saying Goodfella, it does take the suspense out of bb a bit when you know from quite early on, who is going each week and who is being set up to win.

yapp agreed, all these polls make it less exciting

The bookies will set the odds based on how the betting is going. Admittedly when the betting first starts for a group of evictees they have to "guess". It's an educated guess of course, probaly based on a few relable polls as you suggest.

Once the betting starts flowing then get an idea of where the money is going. This allows them to guage public opinion as to who thinking who is going to go, and how many people think it.

So, as soon as they've have a good spread of betting from across the country they have a pretty good idea of the public opinion.

Things change throughout the week, depending on editing of course, and the bookies will notice the change in flow of money and change their odds accordingly.

Very occasionally of course, all these indicators are wrong, and they get it wrong. Rarely, though.

if it wasnt for the bookies and the polls we may all have been in a frenzy of excitement this year and every year maybe this is why it seemed exciting to the hms and extremely boring to us :yawn: the only excitement was the surprise evictions I suppose.

Although betting wasn't a huge factor this year, I always thought it was unfair that people could bet on an event where they can influence the outcome - and it could be argued that betting was a key factor in some of the suprise eviction results.

The bookies odds also discouraged a lot of people from voting. For example, in the week of Lisa against Cameron, there were many people who would have liked to see Cameron evicted, who didn't bother voting, because the odds showed that Lisa was a cert to go, anyway. In that sense, they become self fulfilling.

Similarly, for the final, I know of people who wanted Ray or Scott to win, but did not bother voting because the bookies odds indicated that Cameron would win anyway.

So, the odds effected the outcomes, and also the numbers of votes cast. They became a self-fulfilling prophecy.

At the halfway stage this year was the general consensus that it would be Cameron, Ray and Scott as the last 3 standing and who was favourite at that point?

the bookies arent so good at predicting the winner of BB long-term. Especially this year.

But at evictions its becoming a self-fulfilling prophecy as Ghengis mentioned. And also as Brekkie boy mentioned, gambling may influence the votes. We had someone spending £100 on votes to get Jon out and also later he spent quite a bit on trying to get Steph out the week it was Steph,Cam, and Lisa. He admitted his enthusiastic Steph phone votes were cos of a gamble but apparently the £100 spent on Jon eviction voting was purely for fun

We still get upsets but they are pretty few and far. And also the eviction odds are getting so ridiculous on the fav that it probably stops people phone voting.

BB1 was quite unpredictable to me. Didnt watch BB2. BB3 the trend started to become apparent with the help of the odds (for instance Jonny V Sophie, I personally would expect Jonny to go but he wins by landslide and the odds reflected this. Also I thought Spencer was fav to stay but over that week Alex became bookies fav to stay. Jade should have went and was bookies fav but over the week Adele became bookies fav and the suspense was gone. It looked like Adele was going)

something like that. But the odds spoil the suspense. I dont think they do BB odds in USA altho someone is making up their own odds I noticed (purely for fun. Im sure they are just making them up but they only reflect his opinion I presume).

Endemol should put pressure oin the bookies to scrap BB betting except maybe the winner. Out of the 4 BBs, I could only predict the winner easily from early on in BB2.

Also, possibly endemol shouldnt give out the %s of the votes until the show is over. THat way we have no idea who was unpopular the week before etc. For example I thought Fed would have been a fav with the girls and a contender to win it for this reason no matter how obnoxious he was. In fact he nearly went the week Sissy went. After that I knew he was going soon. Fed leaving before Cam and Jon was a massive shock to Scott and Ray. It might have been for us too if we didnt know the way things had went the week before (with Fed almost evicted instead of Sissy)

But Digital Spy polls are not wrong.

All the weekly DS polls merely ask us who our favourite housemate is,...the housemate we like....nothing more, nothing less.

If DS had a weekly poll that asked us who we thought would win,..then I'm sure the results would be very different from our favourite HM polls.

Nearly everbody here was pretty certain that Scott and Ray would make it to the last day. And many of us reckoned that Cameron was probably going to win from the second week.

So I think most people here have a pretty good handle of what's going on,..it's just that our general likes and dislikes are usually different from the general viewing public.

One thing that people kept saying here over the weeks, was how predictable the evictions were.

We were never really wrong,..we were quite accurate in our predictions....It's just that who we liked, was an opinion from the heart,...that is very different to how our heads told us of what kind of outcome we had to expect.

Did you watch BB2 then or not?

I didnt watch it but I read about it in the papers (I still read papers back then ) and it was obvious Brian would win

I thought Craig and Kate had a chance but wouldnt have bet on them, and Cameron confounded me

Good point Alrightmate. It always asked who our fav is etc at DS polls or who we want evicted etc. It would be different if we were asked who we thoought was going etc. I dont mind DS being at odds with public opinion anyway. Doesnt mean we are wrong I noticed Cam was gaining ground in the DS polls over the last few weeks but who knows how many friends/relatives of the usual suspects were coerced into voting for Cam in the DS polls

This year's evictions were very predictable even without the bookmakers odds and yes, a lot of people didn't bother to vote because of them. This maybe why the voting revenue is down compared to other years and not because of the lack of viewers.

The only week where it was still in the balance when Davina called the name was week 4 with Cam/Fed /Jon. Perhaps there is a case to have three up for eviction every week next year, not that this will solve the problem though.

heres my reading of the evictions:

Anouska: Surprise despite bookies. Cant remember AOL poll. Overall, a surprise.

Justine: not a surprise but the %s were. AOL poll was accurate(?). Should never have been close. Was the close margin to do with there still being anti-Jon sentiment ? possibly.

Sissy: not a surprise. Endmol tell us Fed almost went. THat is a surprise to me and spoils it for me. Bookies didnt matter. Cant remember polls.

Fed: not a surprise cos of bookies and also how close Fed was to Sissy last week. A shock for Ray and Scott.

Jon: Everyone surprised Cant remember AOL. BBLB poll had Cam staying if I remember right.

Tania: no surprise cos of bookies and polls. Without these I wouldnt have known who would go. Steph/Nush/Tania. Why is it obvious Tania would go ?

Gos: no surprise cos of bookies and polls. Otherwise I couldnt have been sure. Gos/nush/Ray. I would have thought Gos would go but no way would I have had him to go by a landslide.

Lisa: no surpise cos of bookies, polls, Stephs low % against Tania, and Lisas odd behaviour. To me personally, if Cam or Steph had went I wouldnt have been morally surprised, but cos of bookies and polls and Stephs previous %, I knew Lisa was going.

Nush: no surpise cos of bookies and polls. In the early days I would have expected Nush to beat Cam but given the odds, polls and Cams previous %s, I knew Cam was staying.

Steph: no surprise.

Scott: a mild surprise to me (and a huge surprise to him

Ray: knew he would be up there

Cam: biggest shock ever ?

To summarise: the less we know about public opinion, the better the show is

Endemol should stop the % breakdowns until after the show is over

Bookies should stop bets on evictions (wont happen)

No BBLB polls etc. Cant stop AOL of course, which seems to be the biggest and is mostly accurate.

No polls needed. There was that pensioner, Ola, on BBLB. She got every eviction spot on.

Yes, and I'm sure she wasn't tipped off at all about the current poll results.

it was funny how most of the `visionary` experts seemed to dump their skills and followed the sheep in the predictions. Im talking about the horoscope and `feel it in my bowel` experts that were on BBLB along with Orla. THey did theirself a lot of good PR

They were the only part of the media machine that brought mystery to the evictions cos their predictions were rubbish

Oh dear, was Dermot fooling me?

Goodfella, if BB USA is as predictable as BB UK then i want you to...

a) name the final 3

b) name the winner

Btw i meant to post this in the other forum but i automatically assume that i am always in a thread on that one.

No. Bookies had Jon as favourite to go.

Her eviction wasn't surprising because she was given most coverage in the first week - and was most annoying..

He he,..yes,..dear old Ola.

The last time I watched her giving her predictions,.....she was reading something just off camera

If you have it taped,..watch her eyes.

I cant the reason being I dont know who will get HoH over the next few weeks. Its when the HoH is chosen, the whole week will be boring cos its quite predictable what will happen.

The groups seem to be: Erika,Jack,Ali,Nath. and the other Justin,Jee,Robert,Jun. Theyve split into 2 groups and theres no secret about it.

both groups will nom 2 from the others. After a day or 2, or possibly as soon as HoH is announced, I will know who is going. Nats gone this week.

This week only Erika and Ali can vote but since the other 3 will probably agree what to do then E&A votes dont matter.

This is what I was saying about Will on BB2 earlier. Someones got to be nomd and someones got to be voted winner but its hard to say who until they get to say 4 or 5 or less and even then its luck a lot of the time. THeres so much luck involved that that can make it boring too. They will probably bring in an endurance test for the final HoH so that one wont be luck. but if you get weaklings like Danielle & Jason last year then that will be predictable too.

Something like that. I hope it warms up a bit but I cant see it. The worst case scenario on BB USA format seems to be 2 groups splitting early on.

yeah I dont know why I said `despite bookies`. Anouska was fav at the start of the week but Jon took over. I think her odds came out quite a bit (7/1 or something). The bookies definietly got that one wrong altho their opening books were correct.