Heavy betting on Gordon Brown this morning made him favourite to be Labour leader at the General Election. This is the first time he’d been ahead of Tony Blair. The move was short-lived for technical betting reasons and not politics

Two bookmakers were offering odds on Blair going that were so out of line with the betting exchange prices that it was possible to bet against Blair in one market and bet on him in another and be sure of a certain profit. The effect was to harden the “Blair will stay” price as punters covered their position on “Blair will go”.

At one stage, as was pointed out here at 10.12am, you could back Blair on Betfair at evens and bet against him on William Hill at 2/1 making a certain profit.

It’s not often that such a “sure thing” happens in betting and a number of Politicalbetting.com users were able to avail themselves of the opportunity before the price moved more into alignment less than anhour later.

Now William Hill has reduced its price so the markets are more in line.

The current bookmaker prices are artificial and do not reflect the money pressure in a market. This is because they place severe restrictions on the amount an individual punter can place. These are depressing the betting exchange prices on Blair going – but this should only be temporary. Unless there’s some political change the market pressure, as seen this morning, is on Blair going before the General Election.

Before betting for or against Tony Blair check the full range of prices.