Bookies to be winners of the General Election
DAVID Cameron and Ed Miliband are not the only possible winners in May’s election. The nation’s bookies are expecting the highest amount of betting ever on politics.
A spokesperson for Betfair told City A.M. “We expect this election to be the biggest ever political betting event on the exchange with £40m likely to be staked.” This would beat the previous highest total by £10m.
The betting action seems to be with Labour at the moment. “We’ve seen that a Labour minority government has moved from a 17.2 per cent chance 20 days ago to a 31.1 per cent chance yesterday,” said the spokesperson.
A hung parliament is trading at 1/5, which implies an 83 per cent chance.
Mike Smithson, who runs the website politicalbetting.com, said that a large betting market is due to the unpredictable outcome. He explained: “A close race really does attract big betting.”
Smithson says a lot of the backing for Labour comes from a belief that while it will lose a number of seats to the Scottish National party (SNP), which is surging in the polls, it will also be most able to do a deal with Nicola Sturgeon’s party.