How PBC had its origins in the last White House Race

With all the discussion about the site being dominated by the White House race at the moment it is perhaps worth noting the role that New Hampshire primary in 2004 had on the creation of politicalbetting.

In the weeks leading up to Iowa and NH four years ago the kinds of discussion and debate that are now common place on the site were taking place on the Betfair forums. People were sharing data sources, making their predictions and discussing where the betting value lay.

Then on the night of the New Hampshire primary we were “invaded”. One of the big betting events at the time was on the outcome of a TV programme called Pop Idol where one of the main challengers was called “Kerry”. So the inevitable happened. The Pop Idol lot would swoop into our discussions cracking jokes about Kerry – the name, of course, of the winner of the primary.

After this happened maybe 30 times it all got very tedious and I went to bed fuming and determined to set up our “own place”. A week or so later the Politicalbetting domain name was bought and the site started in March. By this time the Democratic nomination looked settled and the main betting focus was the Livingstone-Norris London Mayoral race.

The point of all this is to underline that where there is big political betting activity, in the UK or elsewhere, that will be the main focus.

Thank you Kerry of Pop Idol – without you this site might never have happened.

Easing demands on the server overnight One of the challenges with busy nights is that pressure on the server can become so great that we cannot even get access to do something about it. So tonight continuation threads will automatically be published at 1230 am GMT and at 3.30. Please be on the lookout for these and be ready to switch. We will also cut the number of posts on the home page to three.

Mike Smithson