In Love with Love Island Betting – The 7th Season
Set your faces to stun, Love Island is back on the box. ITV2’s smash-hit show, starting on Monday, will run throughout the summer. A feast for the eyes, Shangri-la for those who like to bet on TV novelty shows and a cause of outrage for others.
The seventh season of Love Island returns to Mallorca for its shooting
©4634656/Pixabay
At some point Ofcom’s website – that’s the Office of Communications where complaints about TV shows can be made – will probably crash. At the same time Twitter will explode with #LoveIsland becoming the No. 1 trending hashtag across the UK. Concurrently odds compilers at the top betting sites, which take bets on the show’s outcome, will be put on overtime.
One Island, One Huge Audience
Just consider this: The 2021 FA Cup final, when Leicester beat Chelsea, may have witnessed only one goal but it attracted a peak UK television viewing audience of over nine million people. Wimbledon’s 2019 men’s final, the last time the British grand slam was staged, netted a peak audience approaching ten million for the BBC.
Both are massive sports betting events for traditional high-street bookies, online bookmakers and online casinos which feature an online sportsbook. But betting on other televised events, categorized as ‘TV Novelty Bets’ by online bookmakers is quickly catching up and taking a notable market share of all bets placed in the UK.
Here’s for why: The last summer season of ITV 2’s ‘Love Island’ attracted an average audience of 5.6 million people. Yes, that is ‘average audience’ not ‘peak audience’. And, unlike Wimbledon or the FA Cup final, the viewership was not drawn to a one-off broadcast. Love Island 2019 consisted of 49 episodes and ran for almost two months before its climactic final. To further quantify the figures, ITV’s coverage of this year’s Epsom Derby averaged out at just over 700,000.
Love Island’s Slow-Motion Horse Race
According to the Guardian “Love Island has been accused of epitomising everything that is wrong with the Instagram age – by placing a dozen preened, polished and beautiful contestants on TV in front of a susceptible young audience who end up feeling inferior.”
To a certain degree that may all be true, but Love Island is clearly an entertaining show with a large cross-section of viewers. Some will be keen gamblers and Love Island is unquestionably a great betting medium. Plot twists and love triangles see the contenders fall by the wayside like runners in a slow-motion Grand National.
This year’s British Love Island, which will be filmed in a sun-drenched Spanish villa, begins next Monday (June 28). The initial list of participants was announced by ITV2 earlier this week and it features 11 love hopefuls all aged between 21 and 26:
- Aaron Francis, 24 from London
- Liberty Poole, 21 from Birmingham
- Hugo Hammond, 24, from Hampshire
- Shannon Singh, 22 from Fife
- Jake Cornish, 24 from Somerset
- Kaz Kamwi, 26 from Essex
- Brad McClelland, 26 from Northumberland
- Chloe Burrows, 25 from Oxfordshire
- Toby Aromolaran, 22 from Essex
- Faye Winter, 26 from Devon
- Sharon Gaffka, 25 from Oxfordshire
Love Will Not Be in Shortage
At this juncture the list of contestants will mean very little to many Love Island betting fans. It is akin to horses being paraded around a paddock prior to their debut race. They may all look good, but we currently have zero idea which ones can run!
To complicate matters further, the last four series of Love Island have ultimately featured over 30 individual contestants. And so it is entirely possible neither member of the eventual winning couple will appear in the opening shows of the 2021 Love Island series.
Day One Advantage
However, there is undoubtedly a big advantage to being in the show from the very start. In the latest series of Love Island, day 1 contestant Finn Tapp was one half of the winning couple. The 12 first day arrivals in 2019 also included a joint winner, Amber Gill.
Both Dani Dyer and Jack Finchman were amongst contestants completing from the outset in 2018. As were Amber Davies and Kem Cetinay in 2017. The two couples went all the way to the end and claimed the title, as Love Island betting favourites, in the final episode.
Early Love Island Betting Favorites
A lack of on-screen drama has not prevented some Love Island gamblers from supporting their early picks. Shannon Singh, a model by profession, has been backed into favouritism for the ‘top female’ prize.
Sarah Kinsella, spokesperson for online bookmaker’s BoyleSports, confirmed her company has seen “early support arriving for the 22-year-old who is already our 11/4 favourite from 4/1 in our top female category. PE teacher Hugo Hammond is at the head of the betting for the top male title also at 11/4 and it is 33/1 that either member of the winning couple will steal the prize money at the show’s conclusion.”
*Depending on where you live, you can also bet on Love Island shows filmed for German, Swedish, Norwegian, Danish, Finnish, Australian and American audiences. Why not check out our partner betting sites for the latest odds on these shows.
