Betting.Betfair

Like school kids who'd just had their skipping rope and marbles taken from them. That's how one newspaper described X Factor judges Gary Barlow, Louis Walsh, Kelly Rowland, and Tulisa Contostavlos, and it's hard to disagree. Saturday night's Rock theme descended into chaos the second girlband Rhythmix performed a medley of pop songs - wearing cut-off jeans and a bit of pink in their hair (to make it look rocky). From that moment on the judges were at each other's throats, accusing each other of ducking the theme. But regular readers of this column, will remember that I told you last week that X Factor themes now mean absolutely nothing. If it's rock week, then all you have to do is don a pair of black fingerless gloves and away you go, you can sing any song you like. And it will be...

Manufactured boyband Nu Vibe became the fifth act to be eliminated from this year's X Factor after losing out in a sing-off to Frankie Cocozza. The five piece were voted into the bottom two by the public after performing an awful rendition of U2's huge hit 'With Or Without You' on Saturday night, and then failed to impress again in the sing-off when their performance was arguably the most out-of-tune and cringe-worthy song ever performed on the show for a 'supposedly' decent group. Understandably Nu Vibe's mentor Tulisa Contostavlos chose to save her own act and Gary Barlow chose to save his (Cocozza), but the two neutral mentors - Louis Walsh and Kelly Rowland - both decided that the boyband's time was up. Nu Vibe were available to back at 4.0 in the Fifth Elimination market when...

[b]During X Factor last year, betting.betfair tipster Jack Houghton turned a starting bank of £1,000 into a whopping £1,900. Two years previously he returned a 17-point profit to anyone following his recommended bets. Before the betting action starts this year, we asked him to share his Six Golden Rules of X Factor Punting.[/b] [u]Rule 1: Ignore Demographic Theories [/u]Around the time we were all partying like it was 1999 (because it was), and were all worrying that the Y2K bug would end the world as we knew it (which it wouldn't), public-vote reality television became mainstream (where it stayed). From the moment we started watching (and betting on) Big Brother and its ilk, people started pontificating about the "type" of person who could win these shows, based on the "type" of ...

I'm not quite sure what to make of the [b]X Factor[/b] weekend we've all just had to endure; it was bizarre to say the least! Most of the craziness centred around eccentric Brazilian [b]Wagner[/b], who without a shadow of a doubt put in the worst performance I've ever seen by any X Factor contestant this year or any other year. But it was Cheryl Cole's post-song verbals towards Vaarg-ner that made for uncomfortable viewing. Wagner had simply stated some facts in an interview done earlier in the week, that Cole was someone to look up to because of the way she's come from a council estate to where she is today. Unfortunately [b]Princess Cole[/b] took offence to Wagner's subsequently twisted words and decided to have a pop at him live on air. It was all very unprofessional - on Cole's...

[b]Matt Cardle[/b] (2.62 Winner market; 1.18 Top 3 market) Matt is a fantastic singer no doubt and he fully deserves to be favourite to win this year's contest. Even my 'degree-in-music, league two football-loving' friend thinks he will win so that's good enough for me. The one question I will pose to you all though is, has he played his trump card too early? His rendition of The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face was spine-tingling admittedly, but that's the song that got the judges' attention at Bootcamp and I would have thought he'd have saved it for later in the show. His propensity for high-pitched songs might catch him out as the competition progresses, but somehow I doubt it as he is in such a strong position now, one below-par week won't be too detrimental to his chances of winning. [b]Rebecca...