We can always count on the UK soaps to give us a bit of fun and controversy over the festive season but we don’t usually expect it to involve the world of betting.
In this case the excitement was largely around the death of the Derek Branning character in EastEnders, who had been brilliantly played by Jamie Foreman for the last year and a bit. The unlikeable character finally got his comeuppance on Christmas Day as he keeled over from a heart attack.
It was the cause of his death which caused the problems for many punters. There had been a lot of bets placed on who would kill him in the run up to the Christmas special and with the amount of enemies he had made there was no shortage of candidates.
However, as he died a natural death following a big argument many people were left disappointed at not winning their bet.
Mother Nature to Blame
The people at William Hill decided to bring a bit of festive cheer to their customers in this case. They decided that as well as paying out on any bet which had mother nature as the culprit they would also refund any bets which had been placed on other causes of death.
Joe Crilly is a spokesperson for William Hill and he said that the Derek Branning character had “enough enemies to justify his murder”. However, as “years of tough living” finally took their toll on him the betting firm decided to make sure that none of their customers were left disappointed with the outcome.
