Where did he get his amazing prices?

The above story features in today’s Mail on Sunday and suggests that green campaigner and Tory candidate, Zac Goldsmith, won about £150,000 on Barack Obama for the White House. That’s great and many PBers also made big profits on the race.

But where did he get the quoted prices and which bookies were ready to let him bet at levels which for us mere mortals are not possible. I had long bets on Obama from May 2005 onwards but I was never able to get more than £20 on at the big odds. So how did Zac do it?

On the previous thread the political market maker for Ladbrokes, Shadsy, wrote: “..14/1 when he won Iowa? At ladbrokes, he was 7/2 to be elected President on the day of the caucus and went 9/4 the next day. He touched a subsequent high of 3s, so i’m not sure how Zac ever acquired 12/1 later that month.”

One of the great challenges for punters is that the bookies are smart enough not to expose themselves to too much risk. Thus yesterday after reading very positive reports on Ed Miliband’s performance at the Fabian Society event I tried to put bets on him for the Labour leadership. The best price on offer then, 20/1, was from PaddyPower who restricted my stake to a miserly £13.68. I don’t know whether it was my bet that did it but the price shortened soon afterwards to 14/1.

Being fair to Zac he is not quoted in the story which is all based on what the paper describes as “a source” – whatever that means. Maybe the “source” has inflated things just a bit?