Money piles on independent Danny Supple in the Hills win w/o top 4 market. In from 14/1 to 4/1 following Survation. twitter.com/MSmithsonPB/st…

— Mike Smithson (@MSmithsonPB) February 24, 2013

Making money reading the poll detail

My definition of a great bet is one where my reading is that the outcome is a near certainty and the odds are longer than evens.

This doesn’t happen often but in the weekend before the Eastleigh by election in February such an opportunity opened up.

This was from William Hill on which candidate outside the “big four” would come on top in the by-election.

Eagle-eyed punters had noticed that the Survation poll detail showed that the Independent,Danny Stupple, was recording by far the highest ratings.

He was the only one to have recorded enough voting responses for him to be given a share of more than 1%. He was actually at 1.4% – the nearest to him was on 0.7%. Amongst 2010 CON voters Stupple was winning 2.6% of voters.

The other polling from LordAshcroft and Populus did not list Stupple separately but it was possible to work out from those that were listed that he was doing particularly well.

William Hill had him at 14/1. That moved in to 8/1 and then 4/1.

My information from the field was that he was running a well funded campaign and that he came as engaging and persuasive. I could see him appealing to a particular segment of the electorate.

Even at 4/1 this was a fantastic bet and I had to find ways of getting money on. Going online was not the right route so it was taking wads of cash to betting shops.

When the results were being announced I had absolutely no doubts that he would make 5th which he did easily.

Mike Smithson

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