Ahead of the announcement of this year’s winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature, online gambling sites reported a series of suspicious betting patterns that were subsequently reported to the Nobel Foundation.

The sites said that just before Jean-Marie Gustave Le Clezio was crowned the winner, odds started to fall heavily on the French author.  The Permanent Secretary  for the Nobel Foundation, Horace Engdahl, confirmed these suspicions in a radio interview.

The Chief Executive Officer for Ladbrokes Nordic, Lasse Dilschman, said: "The bets on Jean-Marie Gustave Le Clezio increased heavily the day before the announcement. That led us to believe that there were people who possibly knew more than we did."

The suspicious betting patterns originated mainly in the United Kingdom, France and Sweden, according to reports. "It was a pattern, not just single bets," said Dilschman.