It’s a week since George Galloway announced that he would be standing in Bethnal Green and Bow at the General Election yet his party RESPECT still hasn’t appeared on any of the party lists produced by the spread betting firms. There’s a lot of interest in his canditure, as we’ve seen on the site, yet so far this has not been registered by the bookies.

At least you would expect one of the spread firms to put RESPECT on their lists so you could bet on whether the party will get one seat or not.

The best range of parties is currently on Spreadfair which has UKIP as well as PC and the SNP. SportingIndex and IG have UKIP on their lists but none of the other small parties.

And what has happened to Betfair that used to be so entrepreneurial about developing new political betting markets? Apart from the Hartlepool by-election and the election date market there’ve been no new political bets in months. They’ve just become boring.

William Hill can be quite responsive to the changing political environment but you have to distinguish between those bets they are serious about and put online and those that just seem to appear in press releases. Thus they’ve made a big fuss about whether David Blunkett will go but it’s not on their web-site.

The Bethnal Green and Bow campaign is going to attract huge coverage with the intriguing possibility that any of four parties could end up winning. This is one that people will want to put money on. Come on bookies.

The current range of online political betting markets.