HELEN JACOB, a self-confessed reality show addict and the entertainment manager at Sky Bet, the online bookmakers, is one of few female odds compilers in the business. The one-time trainee accountant was lured away from reconciling gas bills for an energy company by an eye-catching job advert seeking a “reality TV nut”.
Jacob, 28, beat about 430 applicants to what some would consider the best job in the world: to “open a book” on live televised competitions, including general elections, the Oscars, the Turner Prize, the Brit Awards, Big Brother and the rest. She is paid to watch a lot of television, but her job is really about figures, not fun.
“Odds compiling is setting the odds which denote the likelihood of any selection in a given field winning,” she says. “For example, (in) Big Brother it is who is going to win and what price or odds you would give to put a bet on for that.”
The other half of her role involves writing press releases and revealing the favourites on radio and television. With no experience of bookmaking nor media relations, she is the first to admit that her career path — from University of Leeds languages graduate to bookmaking — owes a lot to good fortune.
“Women are increasingly warming to betting,” says Jacob, who sees herself as part of this trend. The stereotype of bookies as bewhiskered John McCririck types surrounded by torn-up betting slips is on the way out.
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But being a bookie is still far from girlie. It takes gut instinct and a cool head to protect the bookmakers’ margin, she says. Contestants on shows such as Big Brother are often unknowns and the public are notoriously fickle, so a good understanding of psychology is an advantage.
Take Carol Thatcher, for example, who last year won I’m a Celebrity . . . Get Me Out of Here!, the reality show set in the Australian jungle. “People had preconceived ideas of her as Mrs Thatcher’s daughter — a toff, a bit bolshie. But as the series went on she revealed herself as quite vulnerable, really ballsy and down to earth,” she says. “The public like to see people go on a journey . . . (they) quite like having their expectations confounded.”
Being square-eyed does have its disadvantages, though. “It can be hard on a Saturday night when you have three different shows clashing at any one time. You have to go out later at night,” she says.
And switching off completely is impossible. “It’s not a nine-to-five job at all. You have to update the book on Sundays and Bank Holidays,” she adds.
“I can’t really take a summer holiday when Big Brother is on. You have to be prepared for a few arguments with your partner because it’s not a job where you can turn off.”
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So what odds would she give on going out with someone who doesn’t like television? Slim? “He would have to be someone who was very laid back,” she says.