In all the focus on spread-betting we’ve somewhat ignored the main General Election market on which party will win most seats.

This has just been spiced up by a new Labour price of 7/50 from SuperOdds – which offers almost twice the return as many of the other bookmakers. Given that you would only be locking up your stake for about 13 weeks this seems like a good value bet.

Betfair have a similar price but with the betting exchange you have to pay a commission of upto 5% on your winnings. Another Betfair market is on which party will get the second most seats. The Tory price is 1.15 – which looks pretty good value for what must be a near certainty. However the Lib Dems are doing they are going to be hard-pressed to leap above the Tories to the second seat position.

Apart from the election date markets there is almost nothing else to bet on. Bet365 seemed to have dropped their Commons seat markets and there are no takers for Blair/Labour in the Election Winner – party and person market.

So if you don’t want to take on the risk and complication of spread-betting the best, if not very profitable, punt out there is the 7/50 on Labour from Sporting Odds. It’s a better return than the building society.

Mike Smithson