Betting on the Osama Bin Laden – George W. Bush double

If you are tired of boring odds-on favourites in the political markets how about a bet that links George W. Bush’s re-election as US President on November 2nd with the capture of Osama Bin Laden?

So many people are saying that Osama will be miraculously “found” just before the US election that there is now a healthy betting market on just this proposition.

On the the Irish-based US-focussed betting exchange, Tradesports, you can get the equivalent of 5, or 4-1 in normal UK betting terms, on – “Osama bin Laden neutralized by Nov 2nd and GW Bush to win the election”. This price does not seem very generous although this will give you a much better return than the 5/6 best that’s currently available on Bush.

Quite what being “neutralised” involves is not defined but it is fairly clear.

A better bet, if you don’t want to link this to Bush, might be by just going for the “neutralisation” of Osama alone before the end of the year. This will give you more time and the prices here are about 3.

How can we call in a market like this? We simply don’t know – but as a sure-fire pre-election stunt we can think of nothing better than the American forces “finding” Osama in the final week of campaigning.

In the “normal” White House race markets the money continues to pile on the young senator from North Carolina, John Edwards, as John Kerry choice as his Vice-Presidential running mate. The Tradsports price has him as below evens with Hilary Clinton as second favourite at about 7 – or 6/1 in normal UK pricing. The Hilary price might be affected by a story on the “Drudge Report” that she will be the running mate.

ODDS FORMAT ON POLITICALBETTING.COM In response to requests from users we are changing from expressing odds in the decimal format to the standard fractional format that is usual from UK bookmakers. This is an online conversion chart which also appears on out permanent links.

Picture – http://www.genflor.com/pics/osama-180×230.jpg