How much of a certainty is the Democrat?

One group of people who the politicians seem to be ignoring are those like me who look to the interest from their savings for part of their monthly income. Having avoided putting my pension lump sum into shares and then kept well away from the Icelandic banks I now have a problem. After tax the net return from my savings is less than 3% and it looks as though this will get smaller.

So what about political betting? Should I start risking part of our savings on what seem like certainties. Thus an Obama bet at current levels would produce in a week nearly three times as much as you can get from the bank in a year.

Here we are on Wednesday – I could put, say, £10,000 on today and be pretty certain of seeing that increase to more than £11,000 in a week’s time. Is this too risky?

One problem, of course, is that something untoward could happen to Obama and what would happen to the bet then? Well that’s quite simple to deal with – I’d bet against McCain (laying as it is called) on the betting exchanges. A problem with that is that while the Obama market is very liquid there’s not much available to lay on McCain.

But the key issue is – have we reached a stage where Obama’s victory is certainty? Could I put my bet on feeling pretty sure that he will win next Tuesday?

The polls and all the early voting data seems to point in that direction and I find it hard to see how he can lose. But, of course, we could all be missing something.

One thing’s for sure – if I did put a bet of this size on it would sure make next Tuesday night that much more exciting!

Live White House Race betting prices.

Our cartoon, as ever, is from Marf of LondonSketchbook.com.

Mike Smithson