|
Labour Leader Betting
Next Labour
leader election betting odds
Here is the latest betting on the next Labour Party leader. These are the odds from
the best online bookmakers:
To find the Next Labour Leader Betting Odds on
the
Bet365 Website,
go to their sports
betting section and then go to 'Specials' (on their left-hand menu) and then
'United Kingdom' to find all their politics betting markets.
Politics betting
tops punters' polls
Possibly the best
online bookie for election betting is
Bet365.
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, like 2010, was deemed to be a ‘close run thing.’
In the 2008 US Presidential Election,
presidential 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 5-10% 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.
Our
No.1 recommended online bookie, casino & poker site:
Claim £200 |
