Miss Cork the odds-on favourite for national title after betting surge

IT WAS a case of deja-vu in the Miss Ireland contest yesterday after extraordinary betting on Miss Cork to win the title suddenly dropped her odds from 14-1 to 4-5 in the space of one day.

A similar betting frenzy saw the odds on the ultimate winner in 2005, Aoife Cogan, also drop from 14-1 to 4-5 and led Paddy Power to pay back a number of placed bets.

Yesterday William Hill Bookmakers had a massive surge in voting on Miss Cork Aishling Cronin, making her their favourite for the 2007 crown.

The current Miss Kearys of Cork, she overtook Karen Sutton (Miss Heart and Soul) as the odds-on favourite.

William Hill’s Irish spokesman Tony Kenny said, “We’ve already seen huge interest in the betting for this year’s competition, and we expect the interest to intensify over the next few days.

“Last week Karen Sutton was the punters favourite for the competition, but the punters in Cork believe that Aishling Cronin is going to bring the Miss Ireland crown back to the Rebel county.”

Following the 2005 competition bookmakers Paddy Power said it would refuse future bets on the Miss Ireland title after a flood of “peculiar” bets on the eventual winner.

It also refunded all losing bets.

At the time Paddy Power said it had received calls from a number of punters seeking to “put on as much as possible” on Aoife Cogan and that four-figure bets were even being placed.

Many of those bets came from a “certain area”.

It said that seemed unusual as there were 20 ladies in the running for the title, but added it had been the third consecutive year it had seen unusual betting on the Miss Ireland contest.

At the time it suggested the pageant be televised so the public would have an input in the selection process.

This year’s pageant takes place on June 30 in the Silver Springs Hotel in Cork.