There's one section of society who will be hoping those engagement rumours are false: the bookies.
William Hill has announced today that their company has stopped taking
bets that Prince William and Kate Middleton will marry after one brave
punter staked no less than £1,000 on the couple marrying on July 19th
this year (how specific is that?!).
Says a spokesman for Britain's biggest bookmaker: "We've taken
a number of large bets — one punter wanted to place a £1,000 bet that
the couple will marry on July 19th, so we're no longer accepting wagers
on that day."
It
all may sound rather preposterous, but it's a fact of life that royal
insiders (i.e. those who work for the family) are known to top up their
sometimes meagre wages by placing bets on matters royal with the use of
knowledge they've garnered from behind palace walls.
If this Thursday 19th July prediction were to be true (big 'if' at this
stage) the bookmaker will have to pay out in excess of £20,000.
Such are the numbers of bets which have
been placed on the royal romance over the past months, the bookies
stand to lose more than £50,000 if William and his girlfriend of around
four years — to this day nobody precisely knows when the famously
secretive William began dating Kate — wed at any time in 2007.
