Betting hots up as EastEnders prepares to reveal Lucy Beale’s killer

With just over a week to go until the EastEnders ‘live week’, Coral has seen a flurry of bets on one of the most highly anticipated soap climaxes of the year – the revelation of Lucy Beale’s killer.

To celebrate its 30th anniversary, the popular evening soap will be showing episodes with live snippets throughout the week from Monday February 16th, The ‘big reveal’ is set to take place in an explosive hour-long live episode on Friday February 20th.

The identity of Lucy Beale’s killer has so far been kept a closely-guarded secret, so much so that even the show’s cast members will not find out until 30 minutes before the broadcast.

Odds are changing fast as producers continue to lead viewers on with red herrings, but the latest favourite is Abi Branning, who currently stands at 4/1.

The latest ‘clue’ to throw fans off the scent was at the National Television Awards, in which host Dermot O’Leary played viewers a recording of the last sound that Lucy heard – an eerie playback of her jewellery box.

Viewers soon began to speculate as to whether or not Abi Branning had bludgeoned Lucy with said jewellery box after becoming irate about Lucy’s affair with her father, Max Branning.

Lucy still had a lot of enemies however, and those who are looking to make a riskier bet should look to Max Branning, who Coral have generously priced at odds of 18/1.

It’s not the first time that producers at EastEnders have had fans on the edge of their seats in a ‘big reveal’ storyline – in 2010, 19.9 million of us tuned in to watch Stacey Slater reveal live on air that she had killed Archie. In 2001, more than £250,000 was wagered nationwide in the infamous ‘Who Shot Phil?’ storyline.

With a total of 71 suspects – including odds of 50/1 for a suicide or death of natural causes – the revelation of Lucy Beale’s killer looks set to be one of the most exciting soap betting markets yet.