Betfair revive their leader line-up market

One of the great betting markets during the last parliament was Betfair’s leader line-up when you had to predict which of those who had been heading their parties two and a half years earlier would still be there on election day.

So the options then were Blair, IDS and Kennedy; Blair and IDS; Blair and Kennedy; only Blair; only IDS; only Kennedy and none of them. This became a great place to punt as each of the leaders came at one stage or another came under pressure. IDS, of course, was ousted in October 2003.

During the period it operated I had more than 600 separate trades backing and laying on each of the options and came out with a reasonable profit.

Now we’ve got the 2007 version of the market which has just been put up by the betting exchange. The options are with the latest prices:-

All three 0.4/1
Gord and Dave 1.92/1
Gord and Ming 1.7/1
Dave and Ming 9.5/1
Only Gord 9/2
Only Dave 9.5/1
Only Ming 20/1
None of them 9.5/1

There’s very little been put on so far and less than £150 has been traded. But if, say, the pressure does build on Cameron during the summer you could see this being the place where you could bet on him not being there or on him surviving. The same could happen with Ming although and clearly, at the moment, the odds on options including Gordon will remain fairly tight.

Like all these new Betfair markets it only gets interesting when punters start betting and there is some liquidity.

The general principle to follow is that party leaders are usually much more resilient than the headlines might suggest and the time to get the best price is when one of them is attracting a lot of flak

Provided nothing untoward happens to any of them the all three option will remain the strong favourite.

Today on the site. I’m tied up for almost all the day at a family wedding and will endeavour to publish Sean Fear’s Friday slot when I get a moment.

Mike Smithson