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Was the Winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature Leaked?
12-Oct-2008
Written by: Mic Mell
Based on betting trends in the days leading up to the award for the Nobel Prize in Literature, it appears that the winner’s name was leaked.
So much for secrecy.
Picking the winner of a Nobel Prize is never an easy task, and betting on that winner is usually a high risk gamble. Either Nobel winner Jean-Marie Gustave Le Clezio was a shoo-in, or someone leaked the winner days before the announcement from the Swedish Academy.
The Associated Press reports that in the days leading up to the announcement of the winner, Ladbrokes, a British betting agency, reported an "unusually high" number of bets for Le Clezio, and the odds of him winning the most prestigious prize in the writing world dropped from 15:1 to 2:1, forcing Ladbrokes to close all bets.
Few details have been released from the Swedish Academy about the incident, although the head of the Swedish Academy was quoted by the AP as saying, "I have a strong suspicion that there has been a leak in the system this time."
Speculation around who will win is known to be widespread, and until mere days before the award, Le Clezio was not the frontrunner. Reuters reports that several writers were at the top of Ladbrokes' list as recently as October 1, and the massive number of bets for Le Clezio was an indicator that something was amiss.
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