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Election Betting
There are very many betting events on politics, whether that be general election betting or party leader betting. For all your bets we suggest
Bet365 (£200 of free bets) as the best online bookmaker. They have more odds than anyone on politics.
Next UK General Election betting odds (party to win most seats) listed below:
| Bet365 | Betfred |
Stan James | BetVictor | Paddy Power | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| CONSERVATIVES | 8/11 | 8/11 |
8/11 | 8/11 | 4/6 |
| LABOUR | 11/10 | 11/10 |
11/10 | 10/11 | 11/10 |
| ANY OTHER | - | 66/1 |
66/1 | - | - |
| LIB DEM | 80/1 | 66/1 |
- | 50/1 | 80/1 |
| UKIP | 125/1 | - |
- | - | - |
|
Place terms: Win Only. |
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Politics betting odds top punters' polls
Forget the opinion polls, election betting provides much better predictions. Candidates all over the UK look to the betting shops and the online political betting markets for their chances of election. Almost every newspaper now has its own opinion poll, but they have been proved wrong in the past, most significantly in the 1992 UK general election which was deemed to be a ‘close run thing.’
In the 2008 US presidential election betting again provided predictions more accurate than those of the opinion polls. In only two of the fifty states were the politics betting markets proved wrong. Similarly, in the 2004 USA Presidential Election, the market model of the sportsbook proved itself invincible. The politics betting favourite won in every single state. One of the election betting market's most conspicuous triumphs was in the state of Florida where a number of polls put Kerry ahead of Bush or declared that it was much too close a race to call. The betting markets consistently and correctly showed that Bush would be victor with a relatively comfortable margin.
It’s not just the online exchanges that have provided astonishingly predictive political betting markets. In a study of the US Presidential elections from the late 1860s to 1940, only in one single year, 1916, did the candidate who was market favourite in the election betting during the month before the election fail to win.
In Britain, Professor Leighton Vaughan-Williams, a keen exponent of the predictive power of election betting, was asked by the Economist magazine a fortnight before the 2005 UK General Election, to predict both the victor and the winning margin in terms of number of seats. He cited a Labour victory by some sixty seats. Having heard the professor’s views, the Chairman of the MORI polling organisation was so confident that the margin would be closer to one hundred seats that he invited him, in a BBC World Service Debate programme, to bet on it. Luckily for the Chairman of MORI Vaughan-Williams declined. The actual margin was just a little over 60 seats.
The pollsters may canvass a few thousand people for their views but they consistently deliver a degree of inaccuracy as some of those people they approach are notoriously coy about whom they will really vote for and others may not be prepared to admit that they actually do not intend to vote at all. There are other question marks over the construction of the very questionnaires that are used for the pollsters purposes.
The people who matter when it comes to predicting the results of elections are those who are prepared to ‘put their money where there mouth is’, those who take part in election betting. They are not theorists. They are not pundits. They are those who decide to invest in election betting and bear the financial outcomes of those investments.
Election betting does not just cover the candidate or party’s chances of winning. Spread betting on individual margins has become increasingly popular and has contributed significantly to the volume of turnover. You can now delve into the detail of the margin of a little known rural candidate’s expected victory or loss. In a horse race with few runners and a short priced favourite, a separate book concerning the winning distance (quoted in numbers of lengths) often appears on bookmakers boards at the races as they endeavour to increase betting activity. Now we can bet in a much more sophisticated way on the number of votes at election time instead.
With today’s range of bet types and methods of placing them, the volume of political betting is on the increase. One leading UK bookmaker predicts that, for the first time, some ten million pounds will be wagered on the 2010 UK general election, that’s roughly equivalent to the amount that is generated by the FA Cup Final.
Political betting does not just occur for the main candidates in general elections in the UK. Odds are generated countrywide right down to local election level. Online betting exchanges have ensured that no political betting demand is unfulfilled.
Prior to the 2010 UK general election, odds were on offer for a labour majority in parliament, a conservative majority and for an outright conservative win. If the political betting is any indicator at all, which we know it is, the Liberal Democrats might as well abandon hope right now.
It is important to understand that the punters and the pundits are not marginal characters. By their very investments they are going to affect the political outcomes. There is not a serious candidate in UK, the US, or anywhere in the developed world who, at the time of a general election, will not pay attention to the odds in favour or against their chance. Election betting has become an influential force that almost overshadows the opinion polls.
Looking back at the history of election betting in the UK, Ladbrokes were the first bookmakers, in 1963, to offer political betting in an open environment. Election betting certainly took place beforehand, but it was confined to a very private book that was only available for select customers. The catalyst for more accessible political betting was the Conservative leadership battle after the surprise resignation of the then Prime Minister, Harold Macmillan, following the notorious Profumo affair. Back then election betting delivered a profit of approximately £1,300. Three years later political betting had gathered much more momentum resulting in turnover of over £1.5 million, more than the firm took on that year’s horse racing Derby.
If the punters think that a candidate is going to win and follow up by indulging in political betting, it can genuinely affect the candidate’s chances. Such is the influence of political betting that it is not unheard of for some candidates to invest in themselves on the political betting exchanges in order to reduce their odds and consequently make them appear more electable. Forget the party politics. This is the real world.
So forget the opinion polls. They come and they go and they are normally within five to ten percent of a half way accurate prediction. They are uncertain crystal balls. If you want a more accurate prediction of election results, election betting can and often has provided it.
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