Big Brother
DG just posted his visceral and entirely justified attack on Big Bro. and the cuntfucks who inhabit it.

But you want to know the scary thing? Each and every one of them could guarantee a decent little payout on top of the cash they manage to wring out of their 15 minutes of fame. Once again (see my other post) they could do this through the wonder of matched betting.

So, top price is £100k - but only one person will get this. How can I bag myself a goodly share of this? Let's take a hypthetical example...

It's a new series of big brother - and you're a potential housemate called "Muppet". Say hello Muppet.

You've been contacted by the producers, told to pack a bag and get ready to be collected, so you swing into action. You get your partner/parents/friends to start gathering money together - you'll need about £50,000 available to pull this off.

You're picked to go into the house, and it's now week one. From the first moment, you become the perfect friendly housemate. you love everybody, while favouring no-one. You don't cause trouble, you do more than your share while being entertining to the viewers, and basically put yourself in prime position to win.

As a result, the odds of you to win drop like a stone - you're seen as a dead cert (evens or 1/1). At this prearranged point, your friends/family/gambling syndicate pile in and place a lay bet on you at a betting exchange - they are betting on you not to win at roughly the same odds. This needs to be done carefully so as not to upset the odds.

Once they've placed all the money, they manage to get a signal to Muppet. Perhaps a bagpiper playing at midday, or a plane flying overhead trailing a "Sun" promotional banner. Nothing too out of the ordinary for big brother.

Muppet gets the signal, and all of a sudden his behaviour changes. He becomes aggressive and argumentative. He gets greedy with food and pisses in the kitchen bin. Nothing sufficient to get him thrown out, but enought to persuade the rest of the house to evict him. If this doesn't work the first time, then for the next eviction week. Do nothing. Literally nothing. Keep pissing off the housemates, but also annoy the viewers by being boring. they'll soon have you out of there.

So - you've been evicted. You have your chat with a bemused Davina, refuse all publicity and go home. As you have not won, the money that your friends/family placed as a lay bet is refunded, and your winnings from this bet are roughly the same - approximately £50,000.

If you had won, they would have had to pay out the £50,000, but you would have received the big £100,000 prize - still making a total of £50,000 profit - plus all the usual publicity nonsense.

Not bad for 2 or 3 weeks work (and of course public humiliation)
( Fireflier La la la la, not listening on, Tue 5 Aug 2008, 14:54, 4 replies)

But
You'd still be a cunt.
(Scrumpy does not negotiate with terrorists,, Tue 5 Aug 2008, 15:42, closed)

Refuse all publicity?
Surely you mean more "blame the change in behaviour on someone else". Big Brother putting cocaine in the drinking water, someone spiking your drink, that sort of thing. Or just "I'm a very sensitive guy".

Then sell your story to some shiterag newspaper and rake in some more cash!

So the idea is to put £50k on yourself to lose when you seem dead certain to win then get yourself evicted? How about voting after week one that you'd be thrown out- then use something someone says or does as a "spark" to let your violent side loose, smash a load of BB propety and be thrown out? Surely higher odds on you being thrown out than just "being evicted that week"- and it gives you a better excuse for (a) betting and (b) being violent on TV.

Then sell your story.
( uberdeity Wondered why Owen Lars knew of the term "hell" on, Tue 5 Aug 2008, 18:04, closed)

Well you see...
we're getting into technicalities of matched betting here here (and I refer the honourable gentleman to the links in my other post), but basically:

How about voting after week one that you'd be thrown out- then use something someone says or does as a "spark" to let your violent side loose, smash a load of BB propety and be thrown out?

Yep - could work - the main thing is that you are trying to engineer a directly opposing result to you winning the competition, as you have placed a LAY bet (betting that a result will not happen) on you/Muppet winning.
Actually, the simplest way to approach this would be probably be to walk out! There doesn't appear to be any rules about withdrawal (in the Betfair rules for the BB9 winner market), so it might well work.

Surely higher odds on you being thrown out than just "being evicted that week"- and it gives you a better excuse for (a) betting and (b) being violent on TV.

Ironically, for this type of enterprise, lower odds are better (I can explain why if you want, but would be better done elsewhere). If you want to engineer the highest guaranteed payout, then £50k would be your limit. If you wanted the maximum possible, then either win the damn competition or find someone who will take a bet on you getting chucked out, and then do as you say. However, you might struggle to find someone willing to take that bet!

You need an excuse for being violent in the Big Brother house? I thought that was a given...

As a side note, I think that this sort of thing show why anyone would be daft to bet on big brother! It's a fix, the whole damn thing!
( Fireflier La la la la, not listening on, Tue 5 Aug 2008, 19:47, closed)

Could work
Wouldn't the fact that there is a lot of low money in the market push the odds up though?

If lots of money was being offered, then people would start increasing the odds, wouldn't they?

All added to the fact that it isn't that easy to be popular in Big Brother. If you're too nice, you're seen as boring - but I guess you don't need to be the favourite to win, just to not go out in the first few weeks...
(h3llo, Wed 6 Aug 2008, 10:06, closed)