SBC News Voice of the Sports Betting Industry
Ladbrokes will not open a market on popular BBC TV baking competition ‘The Great British Bake Off’ (program often referred to as Bake Off or GBBO).
Last year the FTSE-listed betting operator was stung for £10,000 following a flurry of early market bets placed on Nadiya Hussain the eventual winner of Bake Off 2015.
Ladbrokes management would host an investigation into its market, which found that the bets placed on Hussain were partly linked to staff working for Bake Off TV production house Love Productions.
The BBC’s Bake Off who last week published TV audience figures of 10.4 million, is a pre-recorded show, hence production staff working on the program would have known the outcome of the winner weeks in advance.
Following Ladbrokes £10,000 pay-out, management of Love Productions declared that they were ‘surprised’ that a bookmaker would open a market on a pre-recorded show.
At present, Industry betting operators have followed suite by not offering markets on BBC’s Bake Off.
Ahead of the show’s 2016 return on 24 August, Ladbrokes competitor William Hill published its set of “illustrative odds”, detailing which contestant they believed would win, but not opening the TV market for customer wagering.
