[Iceman]

They used their access to internal data to identify the volume of calls being made for each contestant on the ITV1 talent show.

But they were caught when bookmaker Betfair reported suspicious gambling activity between October and November last year and an inquiry was launched.

The Gambling Commission yesterday said it was ‘satisfied the bets placed were substantially unfair’ and declared them void.

The three Virgin Media employees were suspended when the allegations were made and have since been dismissed.

The revelation is the latest in a string of scandals and technical errors affecting phone voting on programmes including GMTV, Dancing On Ice and Big Brother.

Virgin Media described it as an ‘isolated incident’ but said extra monitoring would take place to stop it happening again.

‘At no point was any individual customer data shared and the outcome of the phone votes was not affected,’ the company said.

Betfair added: ‘Our integrity team is able to closely monitor bets and acts accordingly on the rare occasion that we see anything suspicious.’

Almost 15.5million votes were cast during the last series of The X Factor, which was won by Matt Cardle, who polled more votes than any of his rivals on all but one of the live shows.

ITV said: ‘Ofcom has made clear that it is very confident television viewers did not suffer any financial harm, nor was the outcome of any show or vote affected in any way.’

Read more: http://www.metro.co.uk/showbiz/86031...#ixzz1Isn6yF9t

Source: www.metro.co.uk