It’s 4/1 that he’ll be out by the end of the year After the weekend shooting incident in Texas in which the US Vice-President, Dick Cheney, shot a friend in the face there’s now a market on whether he will hang onto his job. The Irish-based exchange, Tradesports, has two two betting options – that he’ll resign by June 30th or that he will resign by December 31st. The latest prices converted from the binary basis on which the exchange…
Just two week to go before new leader is elected The chopping and changes in the betting chart above show the extraordinary fluctuations there’ve been in the Lib Dem leadership race from the day after Charles Kennedy announced his resignation just six weeks ago. The chart shows the implied probability of success based on the Betfair betting exchange market. In the first phase the money piled on Ming Campbell after a YouGov members poll on the morning of Kennedy’s resignation…
Another case of media sloppiness when reporting a survey On Sunday morning the post-Dunfermline decline in the Gordon Brown betting price on succeeding Tony Blair was stopped and punters began betting on him again. This was prompted by widespread coverage of a YouGov poll in the Sunday Times that seemed to state that Labour would do better under the Chancellor than with Blair. This was the critical section of the report: “On the eve of a speech by Brown on…
Has Tony handed him a poison chalice? With the attention being on the new “soft focus” Gordon Brown’s wider role few people seem to have picked up on a couple of paragraphs in the Observer at the weekend about Labour’s campaign for the May local elections. For with a “a bloodbath of councillors across the country” expected the plan, apparently, is that Gordon Brown should have a role that means that he takes the rap for any failures. According to…
Ignorant media boost Hughes in the betting Four Mondays ago Jackie Ashley wrote a sharp attack in her Guardian column on the influence of betting on politics in the UK and singling out this site in particular for the role it has. But one thing Ashley ought to consider is that those who want to bet successfully on political outcomes have to understand polls – a skill that appears to be sadly lacking amongst many of her colleagues. For those…
..but the Dunfermline victor down 8 points on General Election Lots more for poll watchers this morning with a new YouGov poll showing with changes on the last survey a fortnight ago CON 37%(-2): LAB 39%(-1): LD 15%(+2). On the Lib Dem leadership race the poll shows that amongst all voters Campbell was backed by 18%, Hughes by 16% and Huhne by just 10%. Among party supporters it was Hughes 34%, Campbell 21% Huhne 13%. This has caused a little…
Anthony Wells – “Tories need a 7.1% swing to secure a majority” The founder of UK PollingReport, Anthony Wells, (seen with Guido at last month’s PB.C party), has today published a down-loadable guide to the new parliamentary boundaries. Anybody tempted to bet on the Tories securing most seats at the General Election should read it because according to Anthony’s study Labour would have won 10 seats fewer at the last election, the Tories 14 seats more and the Lib Dems…
A report on the reaction in the betting markets While his party’s spinners were trying to confine the loss of Dunfermline and West Fife as just being down to “local issues” the veteran Derbyshire MP, Dennis Skinner said it was “the biggest by-election upset he had ever witnessed.” The immediate betting reactions have been:- Gordon Brown less likely to be the next Labour leader. There’s been an easing in his price from 0.41/1 to 0.45/1. The view is that if…