Betfair forum closing down

The Monday of Christmas #1 chart week (the best Specials market of the lot) Hopefully the winner will remain undecided at that point!

It's an old battered friend who's seen better days (as have we all) but it's still an old friend

RIP and good luck to fellow protagonists, adversaries, fleeting visitors and silent bystanders.    .

What will be sad is the loss of some great epic historical threads for events on here...some events were truly epic, with great postings on here.

Vinnie big potatoes

classic big brother alone could be a book. Markkkuuuussss

So many 'moments' cider yes!

Nothing like a specials final or event ending, IMO beats even the top sports events as a punter watching with money on.

Re Giggs in 2009.  I recall George Brush starting a thread tipping him to win after his nomination and I remember thinking "will you STFU?!!"

Giggs shortened from 20/1 to maybe 5/2 at post time.  Don't recall exactly but pretty sure he was a solid 2nd fave.  I ended up using a friend and traditional bookies to get out thanks to GB ruining the price on the exchange.

With the 2 layers on the thread, it's no wonder the price contracted.

Thats the beauty of a year long market over
a t20 market.

that is memorable CB as I was tipping Giggs elsewhere, then Brush started an OP here and then tried to get the props for calling it first (as evidenced by your post, he was largely successful with that endeavour ) he was a 'surprise' nom but for some reason, the market was very slow to work out that he had a ready made enthusiastic fan base, and it would be seen by them as a career nod, regardless that he'd done nothing much in the year to deserve the gong. and posters vociferously denying that he had a chance to win right up to the result, then claiming they'd covered him all along lol.

Your Toff call stands out for me as it was one of my few reverses. I respected your judgement but I couldn't even see it on the show :( Nobody is infallible. IAC sadly has gone the way of other pv shows with producers ridiculously micro managing the outcome, to the detriment of the entertainment/production value (hence it's now practically unwatchable like everything else left going).

it's the end of the bf forum, but it's coincided practically with the end of specials as well. left with eurovision, spoty and possibly #1. the cash cow is no more, anyway.

I only play ESC heavily as a specials market these days - in fact I play it heavier than I used to.

But others, BB, IAC etc I just dabble these days really, light touch for interest.

I think ESC will continue to be a fairly massive event and market for betting, but not so sure on the others.

Sophie "Dogface" Reade
Siavash Sabbaghpour
David Ramsden
Charlie Drummond
Rodrigo Lopes
Lisa Wallace
Marcus Akin
Rebecca "Bea" Hamill
Freddie "Halfwit" Fisher
Hira Habibshah
Isaac Stout
Nóirín Kelly
Tom Oliver
Kenneth Tong
Karly Ashworth
Kris Donnelly
Sreedhara "Sree" Dasari
Elena "Angel McKenzie" Chebotareva
Cairon Austin-Hill
Sophia Brown
Saffia Corden
Beinazir Lasharie

now that was a year on here!

SPOTY is so long term I just play it on and off, so often forget about it for months!

That was a good lineup for BB yes cider - though oddly the first year I did really badly on it, and started to lose some of my focus for it.

BB really ended for me the year Cameron Cole won it - awful.

Oddly though, the year after your Sophie win, I did actually tip Josie as winner on the first night of BB, but it dragged as a series awfully!

as mentioned a few times now, i now only dip into EV from the first semi. it's worked out brilliantly well since I've taken that approach, just playing instinctively. spoty just a passing interest, as again the production/bbc now have too much control.

looking at it from the forum perspective, stu. i feel like that generally had to be the most entertaining, following on here. Jedward's year for xf maybe. iirc that also had Joe, Olly Murs, Lucie, Stacey Soloman. I could even bet on the running order :)

i suppose it was the beginning of the end of the brand, exposing behind the curtain to the viewers, kicking out Lucie over jedward.

Indeed - every specials event that got heavily manipulated gradually started to fade, even the big one X-factor.

It gave me my biggest ever winnings in one year though - and also my specific claim to fame, the 'Baloney/Maloney' run that year. I've never made so much in one specials year as that, before or since.

Surely some punter will start a new forum (I say that but I can't do it)? If they allow advertising they could make money from it.

Obv that issue differs in particular for specials H

But as a general forum there's also this one been started by someone from the racing forum I think, open for all BF forum users to join.

https://bfnc.forumotion.com/

How is Gormley getting on ?

Still ticking over fairly well cider, though as I do a bit less specials in general I only visit a bit less often these days. That's more about me though and my betting activity levels. Like I say, I'm mostly interested when ESC, maybe SPOTY, and only bits and pieces for the others.

Seems mad now really, the 'good' times in Specials are so far in the past. Like that Jedward xf was 17 years ago now! I should really take horse racing seriously again, but whilst I still follow it and enjoy it, I don't have the same enthusiasm to go through races early and try to pick out ricks before the market moves.

That is mad how long ago these big years were!

I moved back towards serious horse racing trading quite a few years back, as it is a more consistent area of markets to make returns from. But, still love specials and what it can sometimes offer in punting/trading.

I really should commit to giving the flat a proper go again next season. Jumps has never really been my thing, but I do like picking out unexposed young flat runners.

All my Pricewatch threads will disappear forever into the ether 

I don't bet on Specials anymore, or anything much, just dabble on the horses a little bit, "for fun". I certainly don't win on them. Racing is where I started, way back in 1985 (such a great time, Slip Anchor, Oh So Sharp, Steve Cauthen & Henry Cecil, Pebbles, Dancing Brave, Warning, Indian Skimmer, Miesque, Mtoto, and my (and many others) very first ante-post coup - Reference Point winning the Derby), before Big Brother 1 came along and Specials betting arrived.

I haven't looked at this forum for a long while and very coincidentally just had a little peek yesterday and was shocked, and very saddened, to see the message about it closing. The Specials part of the forum has been very, er, special, and a big part of my life 10-20 years ago, even though I was mostly just a lurker until Pricewatch.

Biggest wins - 2017 SPOTY (Mo Farah), followed by 2004 BB5 series (Nadia)
Biggest loss -  2013 CBB12 (Geordie Shore Charlotte)

Just noticed my specials betting and betting forum highlights has been ridiculously deleted by the new AI bot.  It's sad, but it's better the forum closes than continues as it is currently.

From Horse Racing:

appformat 01 Nov 26 01:27 
if theirs threads you want to keep for posterity you can save the whole thread to your PC.
right click on the thread, save as webpage, complete.
you want to make sure the full thread is visible though before saving, by scrolling up and hitting Show More tab, until the whole thread you want to save is visible.
or you can always save the thread as a PDF.

Disappointed to see the forums closing. A lot of useful historical threads and community discussion lived here.

Can anybody clarify the main reason for the shutdown and whether any archive of the old threads will remain available after 21 December?

https://www.realitytvstats.co.uk/forum

Coming shortly.

It’s up and running.

https://www.realitytvstats.co.uk/forum

Good idea, well done, I'll join

Nov 3, 2026 -- 8:08AM, timbuctooth wrote:

Good idea, well done, I'll join

With the Betfair forum closing down very soon, I’ve set up another private betting forum on the same website as Reality TV Stats. No obligation to join, but if anyone’s interested, here’s the invitation link:

https://realitytvstats.co.uk/forum/join/fDdatNnT_5Y2DOpyy8LR5eQhlwsAW3qRubVubanUHbE

Just making some visual changes to the forum. Similar to this.