Winner Lewis Hamilton 209,920 votes

2nd Rory McIlroy 123,745

3rd Jo Pavey 99,913

“Absolutely ridiculous that @McIlroyRory has not won Sports Personality 2014. Huge respect to @LewisHamilton but come on.” Ian Poulter

“@BBCSPOTY has turned into a complete joke. It’s such a great shame. Huge congrats to @LewisHamilton, but he had 1 person to beat all year.” Ian Poulter

“Technology of the year goes to the silver and red dodgem!!! Just have to win all 4 next year @McIlroyRory!” Lee Westwood

Ah SPOTY. It’s become a bit of a laughing stock really. A sign of the times and the general public’s love of the celebrity. How I long for the old fashioned Sports Review of the Year as it used to be. Still, at least there’s some interesting markets! And last night certainly provided a shock to thousands of punters willing to back Rory all the way down to 1.10 in running.

The signs had been there ever since the shortlist was announced three weeks ago that Lewis was in with a decent shout. As mentioned in my previous post, the polls gave him a significant lead. Probably most telling of all was The Sunday Times YouGov poll published yesterday which had Lewis as the clear winner.

The market was beginning to react and Rory drifted out to around 1.75 around the time the show started. But then he shortened significantly on the back of his impressive VT in the show. This was interesting as there was still no way of knowing at this point for sure how popular he would be as no official votes had been cast (there was a flash vote with only around a 45 minute window).

I was happy enough with my green positions on both the main contenders but tipped the balance slightly more towards Lewis just before the off. I wish I’d trusted the polls a bit more though and gone in a bit harder. There now seems a rule of SPOTY to adhere to: essentially lay any major winning golfer.

I had lost confidence in my Bale selection in the week leading up to the big night and was pleased to see my more recent selection of Pavey sneak onto the podium at 13/8. I also tipped the 1-2-3 on the site at 5/1 so hope a few of you got on that, although I only had a fiver on myself.

Through the year I made some good calls and bad calls but in my first year of the blog (started in May) I was satisfied with a profit of + 7 points at a return of 29% on points risked (11% on total points staked) – please see BETTING RESULTS 2014 page. The aim of the blog is to provide a nice little profit in time for Christmas at say around £25-£50 a point. As I mentioned in an earlier post my staking for some of the larger priced selections was a bit unrealistic (it didn’t really make too much difference to the stats this time) so I will take that on board for next year as I want the prices to be achievable. I also hope the blog gives readers some good trading angles and ideas beyond the strict selections.

Thanks to those who have read the blog – Steven Gerrard trading at 1.74 seems a lifetime ago! Have a great Christmas and I’ll be back in 2015 to do it all again..