The Tories the big movers in the first week of GE15 Commons Spread betting
Those who “bought” CON on Monday are into profit already
It had been a long time coming but the opening of GE15 commons seats spread betting market from Sporting Index was a big moment in the betting build up to next May.
To me it is the finest form of political betting because you “trade” commons seats as if they were stocks and shares and the more you are right the more you win. Alas the more you are wrong the more you lose.
The potential for spread betting is shown vividly by what could have happened to CON buyer between last Monday and today. If they had bought then at the opening level of 279 seats they could have sold this afternoon and made a profit of whatever their unit stake was. This is because the current SELL price is 280 so they’ve made a gain of one unit. They could cash in today and take their profit.
With all spread betting there is a gap between the BUY and SELL and the Tories have more than made that up since Monday.
Clearly there has been a mood change driven mostly by the Ipsos-MORI poll which had LAB 3% behind. Although the direction of travel has been supported by Ashcroft, ICM and YouGov the online poll from Populus had LAB’s lead remaining on 2% this morning.
The Ipsos-MORI poll was helped by the firm’s rigid policy of basing headline numbers on those certain to vote. Amongst all the in the survey LAB and CON were level.
Labour has been a loser as well, surprisingly, as the SNP. Punters don’t quite seem to be buying to the SNP surge narrative.