More bookmakers open by-election markets

Even though the main online political bookmaker, William Hill, closed their by-election markets, as they said they would, on Friday evening another bookmaker and a betting exchange have now decided to get involved. Click through on this link and choose either PaddyPower or Betfair.

The PaddyPower prices are nothing like as attractive for most options as William Hill was last week. Its latest prices are:-

Leicester South: Lib Dem 4-6: LAB 15-8: CON 5-1:
Birmingham Hodge Hill: LAB 4-7: LIBD 11-8: CON 9-1

It is really good to have more betting options and we could not understand why they have, until now, left the field to Willam Hill. There’s a huge amount of interest even if the media coverage has been modest.

On some days there’s been 75% more by-election betting activity going through Politicalbetting.com than on the busiest days on the London Mayoral election last month.

The Betfair betting exchange should be very interesting because you can bet AGAINST something as well a betting for. In a day or so this will probably have the best prices but it is quite complicated to use.

Our view is to wait for further information about the campaigns and the betting activity before deciding. Leicester seems pretty certain for the Lib Dems judging by the way the betting has gone – prices collapsing by a half in the past ten days. Hodge Hill remains static and we don’t get the same feeling that the activists of any party are confident.

On the White House Race prices have continued to tighten on Kerry. We do not see any value at the moment and there is no point betting this far ahead at these prices. Even the Osama Bin Laden – George Bush double has moved out on the US-linked Tradseports exchange. You can now get nearly 6-1 – out from 4-1 just two weeks ago on Bush being re-elected and Osama being “neutralised” before election day.