Adrian Portelli’s secret deal reveals huge problem with The Block nowadays

COMMENT: When this year’s winning team was personally selected by a billionaire’s girlfriend, you know something’s gone very wrong on The Block.

COMMENT

Adrian Portelli’s auction day clean sweep gave all of this year’s Block contestants a happy ending, with the billionaire spending more than $15 million buying all five of their Phillip Island properties.

But it’s hard not to feel like the show has painted itself into a corner, as contestants have to curry favour with a handful of very rich men in the hopes of finishing The Block with anything to show for their months of hard labour.

Portelli admitted it himself in a radio interview yesterday, confirming that he’d even orchestrated the order of the auctions with sisters Maddy and Charlotte, pushing them to go last so that he could deliver them a Block-winning bid to end the season – and his time on the show – on a high.

Why Maddy and Charlotte? Portelli revealed that his girlfriend, Karlie Butler, had picked the girls as her favourites and instructed him to make sure they won the season.

Maddy and Charlotte are this year’s Block winners, and instant millionaires. Pictures: Channel 9

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Portelli explained that his partner took a shine to the sisters because “they came in late, they were the underdogs, they were picked on, (and) they were bullied.”

Those “underdogs” are now $1,650,000 richer thanks to Portelli.

Karlie must’ve enjoyed watching Sunday’s finale as her instructions to her uber-rich partner played out perfectly, but to have the winners of The Block personally selected by a billionaire’s girlfriend is perhaps less of an exciting outcome for the other million-plus Australians who’d watched the entire season.

Any lingering notions that this is still actually a home renovation show, rewarding the contestants who’ve built the best house on The Block, evaporated on Sunday.

The Block’s auction day has long made for one of the best reality TV finales out there, as viewers finally got to see how each house performed in the market after months of drama and sometimes finicky judges’ critiques.

Adrian Portelli’s girlfriend Karlie Butler decided this year’s Block winners. Picture: Fiona Byrne/Supplied

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In the past, there have been big upsets, as houses the judges never warmed to were revealed to be hot properties among potential buyers. There was a thrilling unpredictability to it all: Sometimes controversial contestants won big, while audience favourites and “Aussie battlers” went home virtually empty-handed. Even if you hadn’t watched all season, you wanted to find out how it all shook out onauction day.

Take season 15 back in 2019, when Queensland couple Tess and Luke took out a Block win that surprised even them.

They’d had an increasingly difficult season of the show, and gave an explosive interview to news.com.au weeks before the season finale in which they accused producers of “bullying” and said they wished they’d never appeared on the show.

They insisted they were so disgusted with their unflattering portrayal on The Block, they couldn’t even bring themselves to keep watching.

2019 Block team Tess and Luke had a very difficult season – but ended up winning on auction day.

If there’s one thing Block viewers hate among contestants, it’s a perceived lack of gratitude, and with outbursts like that, Tess and Luke certainly weren’t the most popular contestants that season. But, they did create the most appealing house: A Melbourne barrister snapped it up at auction, giving them a season-winning profit of $630,000.

Winning The Block because someone actually wants to live in your house, rather than winning as a reward for coming across on screen as the most likeable team? Five years on, and after several years of Portelli driving up the bidding to deliver wins for Omar and Oz in 2022 and Steph and Gian in 2023, that feels like a distant memory.

And Portelli isn’t buying these five new Block houses to live in, or even to sell on: Instead, he’s using The Block as an elaborate marketing exercise for his online lottery platform. The day after the season finale aired, he announced he’d be giving away all five houses to one winner who enters the latest prize draw run by his company LMCT+. You can cough up $10 for two of what are confusingly described as “free entries”, all the way up to $500 for 1000 “free entries”.

Portelli has already turned his big Block purchase into fodder for his online lottery company.

The competition’s open until December 26 – you’d have to imagine that by then, Portelli will have already made a fair chunk of his money back.

The 35-year-old has vowed that this would be his final year bidding at Block auctions, saying he wanted to “go out with a bang”.

Next year, production moves to Daylesford. Leaving Melbourne again seems like another risky move, after the 2022 “Treechange” season in nearby Gisborne saw three out of five houses passed in at auction and one poor couple make exactly $0 from their time on the show. That year’s auctions were essentially a two horse race, with Portelli and fellow super-rich businessman Danny Wallis the only serious bidders as they battled to outdo each other.

With Portelli now out of the equation, next year’s contestants had better be on their best behaviour when the cameras are on – and praying that a fresh supply of publicity-hungry billionaires are tuning in.

Originally published as Adrian Portelli’s secret deal reveals huge problem with The Block nowadays