I saw yesterday's Star today, it's not something I normally see and now I know why. One of their columnists made the assertion that Kate won Big Brother due to a betting coup. Apparently millions of text votes were sent in using stolen mobile phones. The Star's own polls showed the housemates going out in the reverse order they did, ie, Kate first out, then Jonny, Alex with Jade as the winner.

And all the tabloids keep going on about it being a shock result.

Although not a gambler, I did go on the various bookies sites from the E4 interactive, to look at the odds, and Kate was favourite throughout the entire week, her odds on the last Saturday was as low as 5-1 on, with Jonny second favourite, but nobody really close at all. As the week went on, Jonny's odds went to rank outsider, reaching 25-1 at one point, and Kate always remained favourite, but went out as far as 6-4 on the Thursday. Jade's and Alex's odds shortened, suggesting the money, if anything, was switching to those two.

By Friday Morning, Kate had shortened to 6-4 on, Jonny still 20-1, Jade 5-2, Alex 3-1. By Friday afternoon this was Kate 2-1 on, Jade and Alex both 4-1, and Jonny 12-1.

Kate's odds were always too short for a betting coup. Jade, Alex or Jonny would have been a better target.

Now my theory:

Kate won because she won a large female vote, and because on the last night, she and Jonny came across better than Jade and Alex. Their speeches were generous to their housemates and not self-centred. Their "posh dance" routine was hilarious, especially when they worked their "knee dance" into the waltz, and a large number of people left voting to the last minute. That is also why Jonny finished second.

Obviously loads of people had their favourites, but there were a load of "floating voters" who left it late, and no matter how it was edited (as I had seen E4 the previous night) Kate and Jonny were going to come out looking better than Alex and Jade on the final C4 show before the vote.

One other little thing: perhaps the people who voted for Kate and Jonny did not see the point in lobbing their pennies at various "opinion polls" with 0900 numbers. When the crowd was shown in all its glory at the start of last Friday, I had a feeling that it was the Kate and Jonny show, because that's what the crowd, as a whole, seemed to want.