But why’s he talking about the betting at all

One of the things that really irritates me is when people tell porkies about betting odds in order to make a political point. Last year I had a go about the Lib Dems claiming to be “second favourite” in the London Mayoral race and now David Davis is saying on TV that he’s still “odds-on” to win the leadership contest. He made the statement in a BBC interview this morning and the story was the lead on the BBC’s website.

Looking at a video of the interview he was very firm about still being “odds-on” and the interviewer did not correct him.

Reviewing a full range of bookmakers this morning I could not find a single one that still had Davis odds-on. Right across the board, the conventional firms, the spread markets and the betting exchanges all have the odds against Davis Davis at greater than evens.

So why is Davis making a claim that it’s easy to establish is wrong? Why also, you might ask, should a potential party leader and Prime Minister feel the need to demean himself by talking about betting markets at all?

He could have easily dismissed the question by saying he was not going to talk about something as trivial as betting but about the future of his party and the country.

Meanwhile the best conventional bookie price on Davis is 6/5 with 1.54/1 available on Betfair. The best Cameron price is 6/4 with 1.78 being offered on Betfair.

At 2pm the latest IG binary spreads were:- Davis 37-45: Cameron 30-38: Clarke 16-22: Fox 3-7. With this if you put a £10 stake on Davis you would get 100-45 times your stake if he won (£550) and lose 45 times your stake if he lost (£450).

Mike Smithson