Is it worth betting on?

The ever resourceful market creaters at Ladbrokes have come up with a range of different new London mayoral markets which seemed to have been designed solely to tempt PBers.

One of them relates to the operation of the quasi-AV voting system which gives all electors what’s described as a supplementary vote. If no single candidate reaches the 50% mark on the first count then the second preferences of those ranked third and below are added to the totals.

All the elected mayoral elections operate on the same basis and there have been instances of the first past the post winner not getting in because of the operation of the second preferences. A good example was Doncaster in 2009 – see the result here.

The question is could this happen to either Boris or Ken three weeks tomorrow.

Ladbrokes have 20/1 against “Boris to win most first preferences but lose run of” and 25/1 against “Ken to win most first preferences but lose run off”.

I find this hard to read but I’m not tempted. What do others think?

@MikeSmithsonOGH