Here's how well we did with our bets during Big Brother 5

With the bets detailed below we cleared over £1000 during Big Brother 5, which goes to show that you can make a decent profit if you're prepared to take a bit of a risk and accept that some you win, some you lose. Whether you followed our lead or just went with your own gut instinct during BB5, we hope that ultimately you came out on top too. And if you didn't place any bets, you know what to do this year!

Overall Result: won £1683, lost £549, making for a Total Net Profit during Big Brother 5 of £1134. In the words of Peter Kay, that'll ding-dang-do!

Friday 30th July 2004
A week before the series was due to end we decided to heap more cash on Nadia Almada, backing her to win the series again. Staking £1000 on her to win at the rather good odds (for that stage of the game) of 4/9, we returned £1444 when Nadia was crowned the Winner of Big Brother 5. We stood to lose £1000, and admittedly we got a bit worried when Jason beat both Shell and Dan to second place!  Result: £444 profit.

Wednesday 28th July 2004
Picking-up on the controversy in Big Brother forums surrounding our own news articles, we sensed that Michelle was set to overtake Jason and get the boot at the 7th Eviction. Therefore, two days before the eviction, we staked £400 on Michelle to go at the low odds of 4/11, meaning we returned just over £545 when she was evicted with a huge majority on the Friday night.  Result: £145 profit.

Saturday 17th July 2004
Having already placed bets on Dan, Nadia, Shell and Stuart to win, we thought we'd better srick a few 'quid on Michelle Bass because she was gaining favour with the bookies. Really, we were just covering our other bets when we staked £70 on Michelle to win at the reasonable odds of 11/2. Thus, we'd backed five out-of the remaining seven contestants to win i.e. everyone except 'Jungle Cats' Jason and Victor. So, we stood to return £455 if Michelle had won the series, but she got kicked-out at the end of Week 9 and so we lost our stake. Still, in the end we made an overall profit from all our other bets, so it didn't matter. By the way, 'each way' betting was not available by this stage of the game, or it was only paying-out for 1st and 2nd place.  Result: £70 loss.

Sunday 11th July 2004
The Boot Camp task meant that either Jason Cowan and Michelle Bass would face the 5th Eviction, or alternatively Ahmed, Dan, Nadia, Shell, Stu and Victor Ebuwa would. Frankly, we thought the latter group would fail, meaning Jay and Michelle would be up for eviction. However, Jason's odds on the day before the result was announced were 'evens', so it wasn't worth placing a bet on him. Therefore, on the off-chance we backed Ahmed Aghil to go, just in case the Sergeants passed (they did). At odds of 3/1 we staked £20 on the Somalian, and returned £80 when he was kicked-out at the 5th Eviction. We stood to lose just £20 with our speculative bet.  Result: £60 profit.

Friday 9th July 2004
On the day of the 4th Eviction there were eight housemates left once Becki had gone. We'd already backed two of them to win (Dan and Shell), so we decided to back Nadia Almada, Stuart Wilson and Daniel Bryan (again) in some 'each way' bets. Obviously we couldn't win with all of the bets, but we reasoned that if we managed to pick the Winner, it would offset any losses incurred by backing the others. Overall then, we were hoping to have covered all the likely options and make a worthwhile profit overall. Here's how we bet:

Nadia - We staked £250 each way at odds of 2/1 (reduced from 3/1 just before we placed the bet - typical!) It worked out alright though, as our total stake of £500 returned us £1125 when Nadia Almada became the Winner of Big Brother 5 (2 x £250 = £500, plus our £250 stake returned, and the 'each way' element was 0.5 x £250 = £125, plus our £250 stake returned).

Stuart - We bet £140 each way at odds of 3/1, so our total stake was £280. If Stuart had won the series, our return would have been £805; if he'd come second or third we'd have returned £245, losing just £35. However, we lost our entire stake of £280 in the end because he came fifth overall. It looks like a bad bet now, but we were really just covering our options to get our money back if Nadia hadn't won, so it's not that bad really. Also, going on public opinion at the time, we seriously thought Stuart would come third to Nadia's first and Dan's second.

Daniel - Convinced that he would come second (but still had the potential to win), we staked £110 each way at odds of 11/4. If the tall guy had gone all the way, our £220 stake would have returned us just under £600. If he'd come second or third, we would have returned £186, almost returning our stake. Indeed, Daniel did come third overall, so we got £186 back because it was an each-way bet, therefore losing a minimal amount of just £34.

So, for our £1000 stake we returned £1311.  Result: £625 profit + £280 loss + £34 loss = net profit of £311.

Wednesday 7th July 2004
Having already backed nominee Becki Seddiki to go with a speculative bet at the weekend, we put some more money on her a couple of days before the eviction. It was tempting to go for the maximum £300 stake, but in the end we put £200 on at odds of 2/7, which returned us over £257 when Becki was evicted at the 4th Eviction.  Result £57 profit.

Sunday 4th July 2004
We were tempted to back Jason Cowan to go at the next eviction before the next round of nominations took place, but seeing as his odds were rather low at 2/5, we gave it a miss. A £100 stake would have netted us a £40 profit, but it was too big a gamble. Therefore, we went for a totally speculative bet again like we had the weekend before, backing Becki Seddiki to go at the 4th Eviction of Big Brother 5. This was before the nominations had even taken place, and our reasoning was that if Jay didn't receive enough nominations and Becki faced anyone else, she would probably go. Staking just £10 at the decent odds of 6/1, we returned £70 (that's 6 x £10, plus our stake returned) when she was kicked-out on Friday the 9th of July.  Result: £60 profit.

Wednesday 30th June 2004
Half-way through the game we decided to back Shell Jubin to win, as she seemed popular in the polls and was a likely candidate to reach the 'Final Four'. We weren't sure if this apparent popularity could translate into a win, but nevertheless we backed her anyway. At odds of 7/2 we placed an 'each way' bet on her to win, staking £40 each way (£80 total). If Shell had gone all the way we would have returned £255. If she'd just come second or third, we'd have got £75 back, pretty-much returning our stake. However, Shell came fourth overall and so we lost the bet NB. 'each way' betting was only paying-out up to third place.  Result: £80 loss.

2nd bet of the day: Having placed a series of bets the previous Sunday (rightly backing all three nominees before they were announced), it turned-out to be a gamble that we couldn't really lose. So, we decided to put some more money on Marco to go just two days before the 3rd Eviction. Placing 2 x £50 stakes at odds of 4/6, we returned a total of £166 (2 x £83) when he was 'booted-out on the Friday. Result: £66 profit.

Sunday 27th June 2004
On the Sunday before the 3rd Round of Nominations had even taken place, we decided to go for a complete gamble by staking £10 on each of the 'harem' members in the speculative 'Next to Go' market. At the time, our polls indicated that the public wanted Victor and Jason out, but because the harem trio's odds were so good, we decided to risk it. Therefore, staking just £10 each on Marco Sabba (12/1), Michelle Bass (14/1) and Nadia Almada (12/1), we stood to return between £130 and £150 if one of those three ended-up becoming a nominee and got evicted. And it paid off when Marco was evicted the following Friday. This is the way to make decent money, by betting before the nominees are announced, providing the bookies offer that market over the weekend.  Result: £120 profit + £20 loss = net profit of £100.

Wednesday 16th June 2004
For our second round of betting we backed Vanessa Nimmo to go at the 2nd Eviction, which was originally scheduled for Friday the 18th, but got postponed until the following Friday. We placed our bet shortly after the nominees were announced and got the fairly good odds of 3/1. Staking £30, we therefore returned £120 when she was evicted on the 25th (that's 3 x £30, plus our stake returned).  Result: £90 profit.

Monday 31st of May 2004
For our first flutter of the series we backed Daniel Bryan to win because he seemed like a popular guy both inside and outside of the House. The bookies already knew that though, so his odds were a low'ish 5/1. We backed Dan to win the series with a £25 stake, which would have given us a return of £150 if he'd gone all the way. However, Dan came third overall and so we lost our stake.  Result: £25 loss.

On the same day we placed an 'each way' bet on Vanessa Nimmo to win at 8/1. Staking a total of £40 (£20 each way), we stood to return £240 if she'd won the series, and £60 if she'd come in the Final 3. Not a bad gamble we thought, but it all went pear-shaped when Vanessa got booted-out at the 2nd Eviction of the series.  Result: £40 loss.