Are you profiting from the violent swings?

For those political punters who love trading by trying to anticipate how the betting prices will change the White House race is absolutely absorbing and if you get it right very profitable.

For not only have we seen violent changes in prices the Betfair betting exchange market has been liquid – something that doesn’t happen very often with political bets.

Now, as we look forward to the start of actual voting it is going to be even more compelling. The primary season starts on January 3rd with the caucuses in Iowa which historically have been the hardest of elections to predict.

For as we see every four years in the state there can be a vast difference between what voters tell pollsters and whether they are prepared to attend a meeting on a freezing January evening.

Almost all the polls ahead of the Democratic party caucuses in January 2008 said Clinton. The survey that was out of line saying Obama was in the Des Moines Register and that’s the poll everybody is waiting for.

I closed a long Newt Gingrich position on Betfair at the start of last week but I’m still far from convinced that it’s going to be Romney.

At the moment I am biding my time and not betting.

Mike Smithson @MikeSmithsonOGH