Browsed by
Category: General Election

Avoiding my biggest politcal betting disaster

Avoiding my biggest politcal betting disaster

A new tool to help predict the next House of Commons My biggest ever political gambling loss was on the 2001 General Election because I had not thought through the issue of relating votes to seats – the critical factor in UK General Elections. I bought the Conservatives in the spread betting Commons seat markets because I believed that the opinion polls were wildly overstating the Labour lead and that the election would be much closer than was being predicted….

Read More Read More

The money’s chasing the Tories in the wrong market

The money’s chasing the Tories in the wrong market

The fact that political gamblers are people who back their views about political outcomes with hard cash does not make them any more “right” than the rest of the population. In fact the nature of gambling is that at least half of all the money that’s bet will be lost. At the moment we see big money going on the Conservatives for a General Election win that could be two years away with all the uncertainties not least because there…

Read More Read More

More evidence of Labour’s election problems

More evidence of Labour’s election problems

May’s Populus poll in the Times this morning provides further evidence that Labour is in for a terrible “Super Thursday” on June 10 when the Euro, London and local election take place. The survey gives the Tories their biggest lead in a non-internet poll since the fuel protests of 2000 and suggests that Tony Blair will be 19 seats short of an overall majority in the next House of Commons. This is the party split with a seat projection from…

Read More Read More

Exactly a year from today….will YOU be counting YOUR General Election winnings?

Exactly a year from today….will YOU be counting YOUR General Election winnings?

If Tony Blair/Gordon Brown hold the General Election on the widely predicted date on 05/05/05/ then exactly a year today political gamblers will be counting their losses and adding up their winnings. What do I expect to see? I’m confident that the bets on Labour winning most seats will bear fruit because the Tories would have to be at least 7% ahead to equal Labour. There might be better value by backing the Tories to win second most seats which…

Read More Read More

Would the Lib Dems prop up the seat winner or the vote winner?

Would the Lib Dems prop up the seat winner or the vote winner?

With both this week’s opinion poll and moves on the spread betting markets in the past 24 hours pointing to the General Election producing a big Tory lead on votes but a big Labour lead on seats attention will surely focus on what the Liberal Democrats would do in such an outcome? The Lib Dems can’t duck this one because the mathematics of the next General Election mean that if there is a hung Parliament then the Tories are bound…

Read More Read More

Predicting low turn-out elections

Predicting low turn-out elections

With almost all the parties having launched their local and Euro campaigns for “Super Thursday” on June 10 the nightmare for political gamblers and others who like to predict these things is how do you deal with very low-turnouts? For low-turnouts can completely distort a result making prediction very challenging and can cause politicians and commentators to draw totally wrong conclusions about the way the public feels. Before the 1999 Euro Elections all the polls had support for Labour at…

Read More Read More

Labour recovering slightly – but bad news for all

Labour recovering slightly – but bad news for all

This morning’s poll in the Telegraph by YouGov brings bad news for all three parties at the start of the Euro Elecion campaign. YouGov has picked up the trend recorded in the latest polls by MORI and ICM to show a marginal improvement in Labour’s position even though Tony Blair has been having a torrid time. The change in the gap between Labour and Conservative has, like MORI, improved by one percentage point in Labour’s favour. YouGov is showing Michael…

Read More Read More

Are ICM’s Guardian polls including too many non-voters?

Are ICM’s Guardian polls including too many non-voters?

A big issue for political gamblers in the UK is how you do distinguish between the two polling organisations that were most accurate with the 2001 General Election and who both claim to be “Britain’s most accurate pollster” ICM and YouGov? Is ICM, the Guardian’s pollster, overstating what Labour will get at the General Election because it is giving too much weight to people who say they are not certain whether they will vote? This is a critical question for…

Read More Read More