politicalbetting.com

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…

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Support the site’s New Year appeal Many thanks for your support in the past.  

It is the last day of the year I thought it might be good to have a few posts just looking back at how the data has changed. My first chart is based on the regular YouGov well badly ratings that are asked at least once a month when respondents are simply asked the question about whether they think the PM is doing well or badly. As can be seen he started with negative numbers but this crept up to…

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Part One – The bet Earlier this year, several PBers, including OGH, bet on there being a Labour lead by the end of the year.  (They won, because of the opinion poll covered here.  Well done!).   More recently, Smarkets has established a market on the prospects of a Conservative lead by end of January (covered here).  But this bet (‘the bet’) is perhaps the most interesting out there from a theoretical point of view.   When it offers good value is…

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LAB voters are now more likely to vote tactically One of the big political developments of 2021 has been the re-emergence of the LDs as an electoral force. Winning Chesham and Amersham in June always looked like an easier task given the party started in second place, C&A voted Remain and it was in striking distance of party strongholds on the M25 making it easier for them to flood the seat with activists during the campaign. North Shropshire was a…

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This happened today about 12 miles from where I live. At the very minimum, the police should be involved.

Their targets are totally different For all the talk of some sort of arrangement between LAB and the LDs the electoral reality is that both parties will broadly be targeting very different sorts of seats at the next election with very little overlap. Because of the need to focus resources on seats they think they can win it is highly likely that both parties will be running almost token campaigns elsewhere. Sure candidates will be on the ballot but there…

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This is the latest market from Smarkets and is almost directly in line with the “LAB poll lead in 2021” that was launched by the firm in July. That one proved a winner and one that contributed to making 2021 my most profitable ever. These are the market rules: This market relate to the headline, rounded percentage voting figures for UK or GB general election voting intention polls from the named pollsters. This market will be settled as a winner…

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