Will “Lucky Tony’s” friend manage to squeeze in?

An evening of high tension in Italy has led to hectic trading on the Betfair market as the prices on Silvano Berlusconi and Roman Prodi has moved from one to the other as more information came in.

As soon as the polls closed the exit surveys seemed to show that Prodi had it and prices swung sharply his way. Then as real results started to emerge there’s been huge swings. At one stage Prodi looked as though he had lost it and the price moved to more than 2/1. Now (2110 BST) it has stabilised and is standing at 1.5.

Having called for Silvio on Sunday, simply because he was a good friend of “Lucky Tony” I’ve now cleared my bets and stand to make a few hundred if he holds on but lose nothing if he doesn’t.

Mike Smithson