In the good old days of political betting, which sadly are no more, the number of seats the parties would get at the next general election were traded like stocks and shares. For those who followed the polls and fancied their political prediction skills this offered a lot of opportunities.

Thus on the morning of the May 2010 general election the buy level on LAB on the spread betting markets was 226 seats – 31 short of what the party eventually got. So a bet at the £10 level would have produced a profit of 31 times 10 = £310.

Those who bought the Tories at the same time would have got on at 324 seats – 18 more than they ended up with. So a £10 bet would have produced a loss of £180.

But the real wonder was that you didn’t have to wait until the election to make money. You could buy and sell positions at any time pocketing any profits.

Spread-betting was wonderful and one of the reasons I set up this blog.

Maybe we’ll see the spread firms running markets at GE2015 but don’t hold your breath.

In the meantime we do have the “line betting” markets from PaddyPower and Ladbrokes. Here you bet either under or over the stated level which moves up and down according to where the money is going.

The latest prices are above.

Mike Smithson

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