GoT spoilers force bookmakers to pull betting markets

The Internet provides entertainment in many forms, including watching and betting on your favourite TV show. But it is also a haven for nasty spoilers and episode leaks.

The latest thing to be ruined by the Internet is Game of Thrones, as sportsbooks all around the world close their Game of Thrones betting lines.

As a result of recent GoT season seven episode and script leaks, betting sites have pulled the popular novelty betting markets.

Bovada Head Oddsmaker Pat Morrow has revealed the impacts the leaks have had on his Game of Thrones betting lines, revealing the biggest betting market for GoT is “who will sit on the Iron throne” at the end of each season.

“Last season, we put Hodor up on the Iron Throne at 5000 to one, and took a few bets for that because we thought we’d have a laugh,” Morrow told Business Insider Australia.

“And I guess it was worth it for the pay out as well.

“We tried to post more serious stuff this year. But unfortunately, those leaks have hampered us a little bit.”

Sportsbet and William Hill have both taken their GoT betting markets down too.

But the episode and script leaks are not the only sources of information which prompted the bookmakers to take the markets down.

At the start of the season, UK betting site Betway closed its betting markets due to an influx of German punters betting on a particular character to sit on the Iron Throne at the conclusion of season 7. The betting site revealed who the Germans had punted on, which caused other sites to be inundated with bets, as well as a lot of disgruntled viewers.

Morrow also revealed that one man’s YouTube channel gave away several intricate details about the first four episodes of GoT which forced Bovada to take their betting lines down.

“He’s not revealing his sources, but as a result, based on his YouTube channel, the entire season has kind of been spoiled, so it’s forced us to pull everything down for the remainder of the season,” Morrow said.

Betting lines ranged from who would be killed off in each season to the character which would appear first and more. Creating betting lines for entertainment is incredibly different to creating odds for sporting markets too.

“There are a lot of different things that drive it. Part of it, I’d say the last couple of seasons — before the TV show caught up with the book, but then passed it — I was able to work off of book knowledge,” Morrow said.

“After the fact, it was the combination of not just my own knowledge, but also scouring the internet for the best fan theories, and trying to separate the ones that sound fun, and the ones that seem to be a bit more credible.”

Morrow added that the last part of the process is “profiling”.

“I often use this example, especially when we’re talking about an entertainment setting like this, but someone betting — whether it’s Los Angeles, or someone’s betting from a part of the world was we know they’re filming this, we would take a wager like that much more seriously than we would of someone betting in Iowa City.

“And that’s not to bemoan the great people of Iowa City, but as far as I know, they’re not doing any filming there. So, there’s not the kind of hard maths [player stats, etc.] that we prefer to use when we deal with sporting events.”

There will likely be more leaks as the season plays out and it’s unlikely you will be able to bet on any GoT related markets in the coming weeks.

Even if Bovada rearranged the betting lines to suit the leaks, it would just be contributing to the spoilers.

Morrow did reveal that betting lines for season eight of GoT would go up at the end of season seven to get ahead of spoilers. So if you’re a fan of novelty bets be sure to check out these betting sites once we see who sits on the Iron Throne at the end of season seven.