Does Being The Bookies Favourite Mean Victory?

A lot is being made this week of the fact that Caroline is favourite to win Strictly Come Dancing. But does being the favourite really mean she'll be raising the glitterball?

I've had a look back over the past five series to see what the bookies were saying about the finalists.

The Series 7 final in 2009 only had two participants - Ricky Whittle and Chris Hollins. There was no question that Ricky was the better dancer, but Chris & Ola's Charleston seemed to strike a chord with the public and it was them who came out victorious. Going into the final, Ricky was 4-6 favourite.

In Series 8 (2010), Matt Baker, Kara Tointon and Pamela Stephenson battled it out. Matt was 8-11 favourite, but it was Kara & Artem who won.

In 2011, the show headed to Blackpool for the Series 9 final, which featured Chelsea Healey, Harry Judd and Jason Donovan. Harry was a clear favourite at 1-3, and he and Aliona were the victors.

Buoyed by his success at the London 2012 Olympics, Louis Smith entered the Series 10 final as 8-15 favourite to beat Denise van Outen, Kimberley Walsh and Dani Harmer. Sure enough, he and Flavia came out ahead of the girls.

Last year saw the first ever all-girl final. The 'people's favourite' Susanna Reid was also the bookies' favourite at 13-8. The betting was close between all four, and it was one of the closest finals for a while. But it was Abbey Clancy & Aljaž Skorjanec who went on to beat Susanna, Sophie Ellis-Bextor and Natalie Gumede.

Caroline is current favourite to win Series 12 at 8-13, followed by Frankie (2-1), Simon (9-1) and Mark (12-1) according to William Hill.