Is there money to be made guessing the timing?

After paying out on winning Obama bets a fortnight ago the Irish bookmaker, PaddyPower, has made another betting move which could infuriate those who still harbour hopes that somehow the polls are wrong and that 72 year old Senator from Arizona can win tomorrow.

They’ve opened betting on the timing of his concession speech- which is clearly linked very closely to the time-table of state results that we will see overnight. These are the price and the timings are in EST – so five hours behind the UK.

5/1 – Before 10pm Tuesday 4th November
7/4 – 10pm to 11pm Tuesday 4th November
11/8 – 11pm to 12pm Tuesday 4th November
3/1 – Wednesday 5th November 3 – 1
12/1 – Later than Wednesday 5th November
6/1 – No concession speech

Harry Hayfield did a great guest slot here a couple of weeks ago sketching out the timings for the night.

There are six key early states which really will decide it: Virginia and Indiana after the last polls close at 7pm EST: Ohio and North Carolina after 7:30pmEST , and Pennsylvania and Florida after 8pm EST.

Initially when states close their polling we will get the exit polls. It will take perhaps a couple of hours after that before we see these being backed up by real voting numbers.

My guess is that McCain will want to wait until, at least, until polling has closed on the west coast – 11pm EST – before making any move and that the 11pm – midnight EST slot is the worthy favourite.

Our cartoon as usual is by Marf of LondonSketchbook.com.

Mike Smithson