Double digit poll deficits. The Parliamentary Party in open civil war*. On the wrong side of the public on the biggest issues of the day. Yes: October 2016 was a terrible time for Labour to defend a by-election in Batley and Spen. They won 86% of the vote. There’s no mystery as to why this is. With the by-election triggered by the murder of Jo Cox every mainstream party stood aside, with only minor parties and independents opposing Labour on…
Good evening, Mr Bond. I know you like a flutter, and that’s why I designed my latest scheme just for you. It began with a betting market. So simple, yet so temping. Who will be the next actor to play 007? The entertainment press loves discussing it, generating an endless supply of speculation and punters my way. Better yet, the options are endless. Maybe it will be a woman this time, as recent films have hinted? Or the first black…
In betting, both sides have intrinsic advantages. Punters get to pick and choose their bets, waiting for the bookie to make an error. The bookie gets to write the terms of the bet, from odds to wording and so on. Importantly, they can offer bets on only half of a market – letting people bet on some outcomes but not others. I wrote over Christmas how I sometimes dream of PredictIt being opened up to Brits. Another, even less likely,…
The betting markets haven’t caught up Last year I opined on Twitter that there were several markets at once with odds which I’d usually call ‘Bet of the Year’. I’ve previously written about all but one of these: Andy Burnham to be next Labour Leader. He’s currently 7/2 or so at the bookies and a tad longer at exchanges, but he should be far far longer. The reason for this is that Burnham really only has one clear path to…
As regular readers will know, I’m very much a disciple of Philip Tetlock and his Superforecasting approach. Forecasting is hard, and human beings are bad at it. But we can get better and more clear-eyed about the future by following a proper approach. If you read Superforecasting, Tetlock’s book, news articles he’s contributed to, or listen to the numerous podcast appearances he has made, you cannot fail to note his #1 rule of becoming a better forecaster: Keep score. By…
As regular readers will know, I’m a big fan of betting exchanges. Since they aren’t setting odds or taking risks from mis-pricings, they can easily offer a wider range of markets than their fixed odds brethren. There are two main exchanges currently, Betfair (by far the largest) and Smarkets (by far the best, but with mixed liquidity). However, there is a third exchange with good liquidity, many markets, and some appalling mis-pricings ripe for us to exploit. Sadly, we cannot…
By-elections tend to be grossly over interpreted. Boris Johnson is more likely than people think to shrug this off and govern until the next election, and even to turn it around and win that election (stunning mid-term defeats didn’t really do much to May, Cameron, or Blair). But it was still a big kick in the teeth for him, and one I thought was unlikely. Still, whether North Shropshire means Johnson will be gone by the summer or not it…
A few weeks ago I tipped the Tories to hold North Shropshire at 2/5. Since then, everything which could go wrong has gone wrong for them and 7/4 is available from two bookies (at time of writing on Friday night). Suffice to say I wouldn’t place my 2/5 bets now. But I am about to advise you to back the Tories at current odds. The core challenge in political betting, in my view, is separating emotion from prediction. Most obviously…