Betting on Harry Potter Plot Twists
Posted on May 25, 2005
The BBC reports on the increase in betting about plot twists in the upcoming Harry Potter book, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince. Mostly people are betting on which character is going to die, which is just morbid, if you ask us.
Bets on which protagonist dies in the novel opened eight months ago, after author JK Rowling confirmed that a key character would be killed. But betting was suspended on Tuesday after a flurry of bets on Dumbledore aroused suspicion of a possible leak.Ah, the British bookselling world -- so different from here in the U.S. Readers betting money on which character will die in a book? In the U.S., first your friends would stage an intervention, then help you check into rehab to treat that gambling addiction.Potter publishers Bloomsbury urged fans to take rumours "with a pinch of salt". "There was a huge amount of speculation about Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix and it was wide of the mark," a spokeswoman for Bloomsbury said. Internet betting website Blue Square suspended betting on Tuesday following suspicions that the manuscript could have been read.
The raft of bets on Hogwarts' headmaster Dumbledore's death came from the town of Bungay in Suffolk, where it is believed the latest book is being printed. The site has since re-introduced betting with "prohibitive" odds of 1-5 on Dumbledore's death.