Betting Patterns Suggest a Leak at the Nobel Committee

Posted on October 10, 2008

We had no idea that people actually bet on who will win Nobel prizes, but apparently it's quite a booming industry. But there is a dark side to Nobel betting: Nobel authorities are convinced they have a leak in their organization because so many people correctly predicted French writer Jean-Marie Gustave Le Clezio would win the Literature Prize.

"I have a strong suspicion that there has been a leak in the system this time," Horace Engdahl, the permanent secretary of the Swedish Academy told The Associated Press in an e-mail Friday. "I don't want to say more."

Ladbrokes saw such a surge in speculation on Le Clezio leading up to the announcement that it decided to halt betting on Wednesday. "Suddenly, there were more and more bets on him," said Lasse Dilschman, head of Ladbrokes' Nordic division. "The odds went from 15-to-1 to below 2-1. That's when we decided to close."

Ah, the plot thickens. Will the Nobel committee discover the identity of the leaker? Or could the rumor that one of the judges indiscreetly walked around with the winning book in his hand be true? He claims he "camouflaged" the book when he was out and about, but we have to wonder.

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