Iraq continues to depress Labour seat prices

In spite of the strong ICM poll showing for Labour this morning the main attention of elections gamblers has been the impact on the outcome of today’s formal disclosure of the Attorney-General’s advice on the legality of the Iraq War.

As reported last night IG Index marked Labour down sharply following last night’s leaks. This did not prompt an immediate response elsewhere and it has only been late this afternoon that all the spread-betting markets have come into broad alignment.

Predicted Labour majority 76 seat (-2)

Predicted vote shares LAB 37.7 (+0.1) : CON 33.7 (nc): LD 21.7 (+0.1)

In view of possible challenges to results IG have issued the following. We expect other bookmakers to follow suit:

1. If a seat is declared for Party X in the normal way, but then ends up in the courts, it will be counted as a seat for the party to whom it was awarded on the night. This falls under our “Podium Position” rule which means that once an official result is declared in any event, and subsequent appeal or disqualification is irrelevant for our purposes.

2. In the event that no official result is declared in any given seat(s) and the contest goes straight to the courts, we will not count that seat for the purposes of swift settlement. As you know counting will drag on throughout Friday, and possibly into Saturday and it is in everyone’s interests for bets to be settled as soon as possible. Therefore if Constituency X does not declare and it becomes a legal battle between Parties Y and Z, we will award it to neither party, but make adjustments to clients accounts at a later date if we feel that that is the appropriate thing to do.

NOTE: The regular BALANCE OF MONEY predictions are based on how spread betting gamblers are investing their money on all the main UK markets from Spreadfair, IG Index, and Sporting Index. Please note that the vote share markets are based on the total UK figures unlike the polls which operate on a GB basis. The latter is about 0.97 of the former.

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Mike Smithson