The confidence vote betting: How the betting markets got it right from the vey start
Chart betdata.io
But if punters could see this why not Moggsy’s ERG?
Yesterday was a huge political betting day with two million pounds on the Betfair market alone being wagered on the confidence vote on Theresa May.
It’s quite useful to look back and see how the markets performed against the actual result and as can be seen the lowest it ever dropped to on the Betfair Exchange for Mrs May was within the first hour at 9.40am when it was 65.6%.
As the day moved in it edged up steadily in the prime minister’s favour and five minutes before Graham Brady’s announcement you could have got a bet on at a 93% chance.
As well as the Betfair Exchange all the major bookies put up betting markets quickly following the announcement yesterday morning that a vote would take place and my guess is that the Betfair Exchange represents about 1/3 of the overall total number of wagers.
Given that quite a lot of betting on politics like this is generated within the Palace of Westminster itself then that might explain the fairly confident picture for Mrs May throughout. One would assume that this was almost the sole topic of conversation and many in in the Palace would have had a very clear sense of the way it was going.
The only other recent confidence move was the one against IDS in October 2003 when it became pretty clear early on what his fate was.
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My nagging doubt throughout was my erroneous assumption that Moggsy’s ERG gang would not have made a move like this unless they were fairly confident of success. That is a lesson to learn for the future. The most important thing when you mount a coup is to ensure you get a body.
So both Moggsy & co plus the PM have been weakened.