Latest news with #finals
Daily Mail
a day ago
- Entertainment
- Daily Mail
Britain's Got Talent winners 'revealed' just hours ahead of final as one act soars ahead in bookies' odds
The Britain's Got Talent final will get underway in a matter of hours on Saturday night, and bookies' odds have revealed who could take home the crown. LED dancers The Blackouts, inspirational choir Hear Our Voice, magician Harry Moulding, guitarist Olly Pearson and singer Stacey Leadbeatter are among those battling it out in the final. Comedian Joseph Charm, Ping Pong Pang, drag queen and operatic tenor Jasmine Rice, eight-year-old dancer Binitra Chetry and singer Vinnie McKee are also making up the finalists. Now, Ladbrokes have revealed Hear Our Voice are leading the charge to be crowned the 2025 winners with favourable odds cut from 2/7 to just 5/4. The choir is made up of victims of the Post Office scandal - said to be Britain's biggest miscarriage of justice - and they have been fan favourites since their audition. From A-list scandals and red carpet mishaps to exclusive pictures and viral moments, subscribe to the Daily Mail's showbiz newsletter to stay in the loop. They are followed closely behind The Blackouts at 5/2 odds while magician Harry is sitting at 5/1, according to the bookmakers. Alex Apati of Ladbrokes said: 'A flurry of bets on Hear Our Voice have forced our traders to once again slash their odds of going all the way tonight - it's looking like it'll take something pretty special to stop them from winning this series.' Eleven-year-old guitarist Olly is coming in closely behind the leading trio at 6/1 odds, while Stacey is at 11/1 and Ping Pony Pang are sitting at 12/1. At the other end, drag queen Jasmine is at a lower 66/1 of taking home the crown, just beaten by Vinnie at 33/1, Joseph at 25/1 and Binitra at 20/1. The Hear Our Voice choir is made up of 39 people who were directly affected by the Post Office scandal and the group have captured the hearts of the nation. The Post Office scandal, A.K.A the Horizon scandal, is widely considered one of the biggest miscarriages of justice. More than 700 sub-postmasters were wrongly convicted when dodgy Fujitsu software showed shortfalls incorrectly reported on their accounts. In total, 236 postmaster and postmistresses were sent to prison, leading to bankruptcies and at least four suicides. Eleven-year-old guitarist Olly Pearson (pictured at the semi-finals) is coming in closely behind the leading trio at 6/1 odds Between 1999 and 2015, many were wrongly accused of fraud, theft, and false accounting due to faults in the Horizon IT system. The system, developed by Fujitsu, incorrectly showed financial shortfalls, leading to prosecutions, job losses, and even imprisonments. Some victims lost their homes, livelihoods, and reputations, with a few taking their own lives. Despite years of campaigning, it was only in 2021 that the Court of Appeal overturned dozens of wrongful convictions.
BBC News
a day ago
- Entertainment
- BBC News
Britain's Got Talent: What to expect from the final show
The Britain's Got Talent final takes place year's season started back in February and three months later it is almost time to crown the 2025 magicians to dancers, the finalists definitely have variety this who will be the winner?Let us know who you want to win in the comments below. Who are the final acts and which received a golden buzzer? Several acts took to the stage in the semi-finals to compete for a spot in the live the semi-finals the judges and hosts were permitted to use one Golden Buzzer each to put an act through to the final, whilst the other finalist was selected by the public vote each previous series the Golden Buzzer has only been used in the audition take a look at this year's finalists... Blackouts (Golden Buzzer): Dance Group The Blackouts have impressed the judges and audience alike with their terrific staging and LED come from Switzerland and are no stranger to talent shows. The group have previously got to the final of Switzerland's Got Talent in 2016 and Germany's Das Supertalent in 2024. Vinnie McKee (Public vote): Vinnie McKee is a Scottish was hugely popular in his audition where he scored Simon Cowell's Golden Buzzer. In the semi-final his powerful vocals were a hit with fans and he earned a place in the final through the public vote. Olly Pearson (Golden Buzzer): Just 11-years-old, Olly Pearson is one of the youngest of this year's finalists. He started playing guitar aged just seven after seeing a neighbour playing one. Olly has so far secured not one, but two Golden Buzzers - the first from Amanda Holden in his audition and another from Simon Cowell during the semi-finals. Stacey Leadbeatter (Public vote): Stacey is currently a supermarket worker but will the BGT final change that?She has wowed audiences throughout the competition with her powerful vocal performances. Before BGT, Stacey had only performed to a small crowd at the local pub. Jasmine Rice (Golden Buzzer): Jasmine Rice is an opera singer and drag queen. She gained the Golden Buzzer from judge Bruno Tonioli during her semi-final episode with her vocal performance of Never Enough from The Greatest also received a standing ovation from all of the judges. Ping Pong Pang (Public vote): Ping Pong Pang are a fusion dance troupe from Italy, who also have experience in talent competitions after they made it to the final of the Italian version of the show. The group, which has 15 core members and is led by two siblings, is a fusion of ping pong and battled their way to the final through the public vote. Joseph Charm (Golden Buzzer): In a bit of a twist, comedian Joseph Charm got the Golden Buzzer from his own mum! Judge Alesha Dixon let her press it on her behalf after Simon Cowell invited his mum to join the judges. Joseph quit his job to pursue comedy so is living his dream performing to audiences. Hear Our Voice (Public vote): The Hear Our Voice choir is made up of 39 people who were impacted by the Horizon post office scandal. This was when an IT error meant hundreds of sub-postmasters were falsely convicted of theft, fraud and false choir has been praised for coming together and won the audience's vote to make it through to the final. Harry Moulding (Golden Buzzer): Another magician who has made the final is Harry Moulding. His semi-final show was one that will never be forgotten as his show-stopping performance ended with audience member Harry getting down on one knee to ask his girlfriend, Jess, to marry him. His performance gained him the Golden Buzzer from guest judge KSI. Binita Chetry (Public vote): The youngest of this year's finalists is 9-year-old gymnast and dancer was voted in by the public after she impressed the audience and judges with her fiery her semi-final performance Simon Cowell exclaimed: "This is what I call a moment where a star is born." Wildcard act: And... that's not all!Two wildcard acts will also be performing in the will be able to pick a Wild Card from the five people who come 3rd in each of the the Judges will then also pick their own Wild Card from the remaining the total to 12 acts performing in Saturday's final. When is the show on? The live final of Britain's Got Talent will take place on May 31 at 7pm. It will be shown on ITV and ITVX. The winner will be announced live and will receive a cash prize of £250,000 and offered the opportunity to perform at the Royal Variety Show. Will you be watching? Who do you want to win? Let us know in the comments...
The Guardian
3 days ago
- Entertainment
- The Guardian
Spelling Bee championship finals: nine finalists compete for orthographic glory
Update: Date: 2025-05-29T22:30:36.000Z Title: Bryan will be here shortly. Content: In the meantime here is a lookahead to tonight's finals.
New York Times
3 days ago
- Business
- New York Times
The Thunder's anonymous dominance, plus a NASCAR controversy
The Pulse Newsletter 📣 | This is The Athletic's daily sports newsletter. Sign up here to receive The Pulse directly in your inbox. Good morning! Gather some assets today. For years, the NBA had an inside joke of sorts about Sam Presti. The Thunder general manager was always building, always hoarding assets, always making the smart move — but what was it all for? Kevin Durant, Paul George, Russell Westbrook. Superstars all out the door with no rings to show. Now, a ring sits four wins away after Oklahoma City thundered past the Timberwolves in a decisive 124-94 Game 5 win at home last night. Consider this arc: Not so suddenly, the Thunder are both the NBA's best team and the clear favorite entering next week's finals. They are terrifying to play against. BetMGM has them -750 to win it all. OKC isn't flashy, either, and I'd wager this might be our most anonymous elite team/MVP pairing in recent memory. More eyes than ever will be on the Thunder next Thursday when they face the winner of Indiana-New York in Game 1 of the finals. I can't wait. We have two more clinch possibilities tonight. Onward: Vrabel addresses Diggs video If you have logged on to any slice of sports social media in the last 24 hours, you've seen the video of new Patriots wide receiver Stefon Diggs on a boat partying, handing women a bag of an unknown pink substance. New England coach Mike Vrabel acknowledged yesterday he had seen the video and emphasized he wants players to 'make great decisions on and off the field.' Diggs was not present at OTAs yesterday. More on this developing story here. Advertisement France scraps NASCAR plan after backlash Jim France, NASCAR's co-owner and CEO, was close to a deal that would've funded a car in an upcoming Cup Series race before intense backlash led him to step away. According to an exclusive report from The Athletic, France scrapped the deal after our reporters started asking around about the arrangement, which would present pretty obvious ethical hurdles. Owning a series and a team/car is not wholly unheard of — see the Penske dynasty/debacle in IndyCar — but France's proposed involvement here still made people quite angry. Read the full report here. More news 📫 Love The Pulse? Check out our other newsletters. In the sports world, there will always be phenoms. Young, shooting stars that take our breath away before making us say, 'Wait, how old?' LeBron James posed on the cover of Sports Illustrated at 16. Tiger Woods won the U.S. Amateur at 15. Lamine Yamal is different. Pol Ballús, our excellent Barca reporter, has the inside story of how the club signed Yamal to such a remarkable deal. It's worth a read this morning. And try to catch this kid on TV soon if you can. 📺 NBA: Pacers at Knicks 8 p.m. ET on TNT/Max Do-or-die for the best Knicks season in 25 years. Indiana can book its first finals trip of this century. The atmosphere should be buzzy. This is why we watch sports. 📺 NHL: Oilers at Stars 8 p.m. ET on ESPN Copy and paste from above. The road team can clinch a trip to the Stanley Cup Final. The home team plays for its season in front of a home crowd. Fun night. Get tickets to games like these here. Mike Sando picked his favorite offseason moves for each NFL team. Hooray for a QB retiring. Also, Dane Brugler revisited his 2025 NFL Draft top 50 rankings. See the hits and misses here. 🎥 The 'No Dunks' guys ranked Tyrese Haliburton's flawless Game 4 among the best playoff performances so far. Watch it here. Advertisement The Pirates don't want to trade Paul Skenes but … they'd have to consider these five packages. Women's golf has a new star in 16-year-old Asterisk Talley, as Brody Miller writes. The sport is wrestling with how to protect her. Great guest spot: Matt Antonelli was a first-round MLB bust. He gave us five lessons he learned. Sam Blum bought a ticket to attend a Sacramento A's home game as a fan, and it doesn't sound like anyone is happy there. Most-clicked in the newsletter yesterday: Antonio Morales' ranking of every five-star QB in the recruiting era. Most-read on the website yesterday: Our latest 2025 NHL Mock Draft. Ticketing links in this article are provided by partners of The Athletic. Restrictions may apply. The Athletic maintains full editorial independence. Partners have no control over or input into the reporting or editing process and do not review stories before publication.
New York Times
5 days ago
- Business
- New York Times
PSG vs Inter Champions League final: Is betting the under the smart way to go?
For more stories like this, click here to follow The Athletic's sports betting section and have them added to your feed. It's easy to get caught up in the excitement of a showpiece event like the UEFA Champions League final, anticipating goals galore. You remind yourself of the old adage — 'finals are typically cagey affairs!' — yet somehow end up ignoring it, expecting fireworks instead. Advertisement We're all human, after all. Ahead of the 2025 edition, where Paris Saint-Germain will face Inter for the right to be crowned kings of Europe, let's look into the past 10 finals and see what we can glean from them. Is that adage correct? And does that mean there's value in betting the under? Seven of the last 10 finals, beginning with Barcelona's 3-1 triumph over Juventus in 2015 and ending with Real Madrid's 2-0 victory over Borussia Dortmund last year, have gone under the 2.5 mark. In fact, each of the last six have, with a run of four consecutive 1-0 wins between 2020 and 2023 sandwiched between a couple of 2-0s. Admittedly, glancing through the list, it's easy to pick out finals that probably could — should — have seen more goals. For example, Madrid beat Liverpool 1-0 in 2022 largely because goalkeeper Thibaut Courtois delivered an other-worldly performance, making nine saves. Similarly, Kylian Mbappé and Neymar missed their fair share of chances in 2020 as PSG lost 1-0 to Bayern Munich. But that's football. Players make mistakes and they miss chances — especially on the biggest of stages when the lights are at their brightest. Ten games is not an exhaustive sample size, but it's bulky enough to paint a picture your gut tells you is true. Betfair's historical odds tell us that four of those seven finals that went under 2.5 goals, were odds-off. The biggest win would have come in that 2020 final between Bayern and PSG, where the under was priced at an incredible 11/5. The market expected goals in that game, but they simply did not come. The other finals — 2021, 2022 and 2024 — were priced at 13/10, 6/5 and 6/4, respectively. Two of those matchups included Real Madrid, which is perhaps a signal that bookmakers generally bank on goals when they're in action. But since 2018 — or, more accurately, since Cristiano Ronaldo left — that's been a losing strategy. Intriguingly, not one of the past 10 finals has featured three goals. It's either two or fewer, or four or more. No in between. We're still days out from the final, so you can expect the odds to shift around a little, but for now, the over 2.5 and under 2.5 markets are priced extremely similarly. Historical data shows this tends to happen when the bookmakers foresee an extremely even final. For example, in 2021, when Chelsea beat Man City 1-0, the over was 11/10 and the under was 4/5. Two years later, when City beat Inter 1-0, the over was 4/5 and the under 6/5. Advertisement And this coming bout between PSG and Inter feels very tough to call. It's a matchup of two exceptional sides who utilise completely different strategies: Les Parisiens are as silky on the ball as it gets, while the Nerazzurri are combative and wily. Few are confidently calling a winner — and if they are, they're calling it close. In that situation, and with the weight of history onside, the under certainly feels like the play once again. Betting/Odds links in this article are provided by partners of The Athletic. Restrictions may apply. The Athletic maintains full editorial independence. Partners have no control over or input into the reporting or editing process and do not review stories before publication. (Photo of Yann Sommer: Shaun Botterill / Getty Images)
