You can bet against -but, for now, not for

For some time we’ve been urging the bookmakers, particularly the ones we have a partnership with, to open up new betting markets and create means of having a punt on issues like whether George Galloway will get back into Parliament.

One of them, the spread firm IG Index, has now broadened its General Election market to include Galloway’s Respect party as well as the Scottish and Welsh national parties. The latest prices across the range are:- LAB 359-366: CON 184-191: LD 70-74: SNP 5.6 -6.4: PC 3.6-4.4: RES 0.6-1.1: UKIP 0.1-0.6

The way this works is that you buy or sell a particular party for a specified stake – the buy price is the higher end of the spread. So if you think the Tories will do better than the buy level of 191 and you put on, say, £10, you win your stake level multipled by the number of seats in excess of that total that they actually achieve. If they got to 211 your profit would be £200. If they don’t reach the price you “bought” at then you lose by the same formula.

With the Respect spread you make money if you sell and the party gets no seats. With the spread level at 0.6-1.1 there is no way you can make money if Galloway is the only Respect candidate to get in. He’s standing at Bethnal Green and Bow.

We hope and expect specific seat markets to develop as we get nearer the day. We might even see Robert Kilroy-Silk appearing in some form

NOTE: In order to start to disburse some of the expenses of running Politicalbetting we receive a commission on accounts opened through the site with IG Index and one or two other bookmakers. If you are opening an account then please do it through us – our costs are rising sharply with the increased usage – and IG have some good offers to new customers joining through Politicalbetting.

Mike Smithson