Why Reality TV Finales Still Draw Big Ratings
Television audiences have scattered across a dozen streaming platforms, appointment viewing has largely collapsed, and yet one format keeps producing genuinely large live numbers:…
Residency Economics: What Headliners Actually Sign
In the summer of 1969, Elvis Presley opened at Kirk Kerkorian’s International Hotel on a deal reported at $100,000 a week, an arrangement Colonel…
A History of Betting on the Oscars
Betting on the Academy Awards is an odd proposition when examined closely. The result is not uncertain in the way a football match is…
The Economics of the Music Biopic
In the autumn of 2018, a Queen biopic that had lost its original director mid-shoot and drawn lukewarm reviews became one of the most…
A Short History of Online Gambling
Online gambling is old enough to have a proper history now, one that runs from a software house on the Isle of Man to…
Same-Game Parlays: Why Bookmakers Love Them
For most of betting history, combining selections from the same match was simply not allowed. The outcomes were correlated, the maths was awkward, and…
Drag Race as a Global TV Franchise
When RuPaul’s Drag Race premiered on the niche cable channel Logo on 2 February 2009, it looked like an affectionate, low-budget curiosity: nine queens,…
Blackjack Basic Strategy: Why the Maths Is Solved
Blackjack occupies an unusual position among casino games: for every combination of a player’s hand and a dealer’s upcard, there is one mathematically correct…
How the Preferential Ballot Decides Best Picture
Since the ceremony honouring the films of 2009, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences has chosen its top prize through a system…