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William Hill faces Harry Potter headache

08/08/2007

Bookmaker William Hill says the ending of the final Harry Potter book has proved a costly affair for the company.

The firm had taken bets totalling up to £50,000 in the run-up to the much-anticipated publication of the final instalment of JK Rowling's wizarding septology, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows.

Up for grabs was the key question of whether the hero, Potter, took his own life or was killed by Voldemort. In the event that Potter survived, all bets would have to be returned, William Hill said.

**WARNING – THE REST OF THIS ARTICLE CONTAINS PLOT SPOILERS**

In the event, gamblers backing all three scenarios could have argued they were winners.

During the action Potter decides to sacrifice himself by allowing himself to be killed by Voldemort. He then survives and is seen to be happily married 19 years later on in the book's epilogue.

"You're left with a pretty disastrous situation whereby you have to give pretty much all them their money back," William Hill spokesperson Rupert Adams explained.

He added that as this was the first time William Hill had ever opened a book on a book, "we don't have very obvious rules available on this which are tried and tested".

"Because we didn't want anyone to be extremely aggrieved… it got to a stage that we had to pay out on those two," he explained.

Mr Adams said the firm would not incur any major financial loss because the sums involved were "not massive".

"It's the equivalent of Rooney being the first goalscorer in a football match," he said.

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