A night on the political betting markets – how punters called it faster than anybody.

A night on the political betting markets – how punters called it faster than anybody.

Comments 0 Comment

UK-based punters beat the pundits

Throughout the long night of the White House race the most striking feature for the punters was how the betting markets were much faster responding to events and the information available than any of the so-called pundits.

As the news was coming in I Tweeted a number of shots showing the Romney price movement on Betfair and how sentiment moved so sharply away from the Republican challenger on the basis of the very first exit polls which were in the initial batch of state to end voting.

This was how the market looked as we got to that critical moment:-

Just two hours later as real results started to come in this is how the Betfair Romney price chart was.

An hour an a half later the decline had continued even more yet even when Betfair punters had all but given up on Romney the media was still calling it a tight race.

What this all shows is that those looking to profit from making political bets are, when taken as a mass, good at making the big predictions.

The other interesting feature was how much faster the UK markets were in reacting compared with Intrade with its mass of US-based gamblers. They stuck with Romney for far longer.

Mike Smithson

For the latest polling and political betting news from the US and UK


Comments by
Comments are closed.