Bookmakers forced to slash the odds of Irish judge taking top honours this term
Louis Walsh has been heavily backed to be the winning mentor in X Factor 2010 after going down a storm with live audiences during the audition section of this year's series.
With Dannii Minogue taking time out after the birth of her first baby and Cheryl Cole only just returning after recovering from malaria, a host of celebrity judges were brought in to hold the fort.
However, Simon Cowell has revealed it was the little Irish tinker Louis who stole the show in the early stages of the competition, which hits our TV screens again this weekend.
"I think Cheryl has definitely got more confident," Cowell told the official X Factor website. "But Louis, amazingly, seems quite popular with the audience this year - and that is a shock, I mean seriously!"
Walsh triumphed with Shayne Ward back in Series 2 but has failed to repeat that success since, although he did make an impact with JLS in 2008 and the mighty John and Edward 12 months ago.
After initially installed him as the outsider for glory this season, Coral have been forced to slash his odds to 11/4 following strong support, but totesport are still offering a tasty 5/1 for Louis to prevail.
Simon remains a solid 7/4 favourite at Coral to come out on top, with Cheryl eased out to 5/2 for a hat-trick of victories and Dannii 4/1 to bag a second win in four years on the show.
It may also be worth noting that Louis has been backed in to 13/8 with Paddy Power to take charge of the over 25s, while it is now 2/1 he gets the groups and 7/2 each of two on the boys and girls categories.
Maybe somebody knows something we don't, or it could just be a percentage call as Walsh has had the groups in three of the last four years and not allowed a crack at the youngsters since his success with Ward.
Paddy Power have also seen support for two of the higher brackets in their market on how many first night viewers the X Factor 2010 show will attract, with 12,000,001 to 13,000,000 now 13/8 favourite here and 13,000,001 to 14,000,000 cut to 4/1.
It looks like the competition's popularity will continue to rise and rise and we'll be keeping you updated with all the latest betting news and views!
