Big Brother 11 / Eliot Pollak / 08 September 2011 / 1

Four punting pointers to cling onto when the BB madness takes hold...

'; echo showAtTime($entry_body); ?> The one critical factor to remember when punting on Big Brother (or indeed any similar democratic reality show,) is that the thought-process has to be very different from betting on football. Ostensibly, when sizing up a Premier League match, there is one simple question to ask - taking all factors into consideration, which is the stronger team?

With Big Brother you are not sizing up the contestants, rather gauging the likely audience reaction to them. It is a bit like the stock exchange. As any successful trader will delight in telling you (although good luck finding one), it isn\'t about the stock, it is about market perception of the stock.

Taking this into account, there are some clear guidelines that can be extracted from the previous 11 series, to aid our reading of the audience. Such a form guide of course assumes that the FIVE audience are similar in inclination to the good old Channel 4 hardcore - the evidence of Celebrity Big Brother suggests they are...

1. The current trend is clearly for female winners. Rachel from series nine, Sophie in series ten and Josie from the most recent series 11 were all young, attractive women, mirroring the type of lady the viewers wish to be.

2. Put some further stress on that word \'young\'. The only BB champion over 30 was from the anomaly that was Series 4, the Orkney fisherman Cameron Stout. This is where some money can be made from trading - some eccentric old biddy will always start well. Yet viewers tire of over 30s, who are less likely to play the crucial \'nudity and shagging\' card as the series rolls on. Get laying if you spot a grey hair.

3. The first eviction in every series of Big Brother has been a female.

4. A knee-jerk reaction in the betting market is that following the opening night, any contestant with a disability or social distinction will be made favourite. At first, the novelty paid off (Transexual-Nadia Season 5 or Tourettes-Pete Season 6.) Subsequently, the novelty has worn off (blind Mikey in Series 9 or amputee Steve last year.) Of course, no contestant wants to be seen as voting out the \'different one\', so they will not face the public vote early on. But towards the end, as dwindling numbers leave them with no escape, their fate will be decided by the viewers. In the privacy of their own homes, the public will show no such compassion or political correctness. Another great laying opportunity.

So there you have it. Four ways to clean up watching Big Brother. And remember kids - it\'s only a game show.

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1. Aidan | 13 October 2011

   Genius mate, watched nearly every big brother series and been betting on the last 3, any more statistics from the past series u can give us??

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