Paul Weller Now Mercury Prize Favourite
A flurry of last minute betting puts The Modfather in first place ahead of The xx...
The xx are no longer the favourites to win this year's Barclaycard Mercury Prize after what is being called one of the biggest gambles in music betting history.
Rupert Adams of William Hill tells Xfm: "Paul Weller has gone from 20/1 – so if you invest one pound you’d win 20 – to 1/10 and we’re struggling really to get to the bottom of where all this money came from or why it came. Perhaps people feel that he was robbed back in 1994 when he was pipped by M People and they are going to right a wrong."
He explained that it is all based one place in particular: "The interesting thing is that it was largely in the Birmingham area which suggests that there was a forum or an internet move within the area and everyone latched on to it so it is very geographically-centric – that is again a bit of a surprise. Having said that because Paul Weller is so short now you find that the rest of the people within the market are actually really good value particularly, I think, Laura Marling at 7/1, you can get 8/1 for Mumford & Sons, that was half that price on Thursday afternoon."
The Modfather has replaced The xx as favourite but Rupert isn't sure the duo should be written off just yet. "They’re still second to favourite at 7/4," he says. "You can see why they deserve to be favourite – it’s a one off album as far as we are concerned and I can see it doing extremely well but at the same time it might not get enough first votes from the various judges to actually win it. I still feel you need a really big personality and that for me would be a Laura Marling, perhaps Mumford & Sons, and obviously whichever way you look at it Paul Weller is a contender."
Xfm's John Kennedy is a judge on the panel so Paddy Kelly is hosting a Mercury X-Posure special on Tuesday night (September 7) from 10pm, with Dan O’Connell reporting from the red carpet.
Tagged as Paul Weller, The XX
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