Hartlepool Price watch - where’s the money going?
September 25th, 2004
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Labour nervousness - not much Lib Dem confidence
There’s currently almost no support for Labour at the heavy odds-on prices on the Betfair exchange and prices are easing. At the same time there’s been a slight hardening in the Lib Dem price. The LDs are now at about 100/30 down from between 9/2 and 4/1.
Labour has moved out from 1/5 to about 1/4. What’s very telling is that currently there’s nobody offering to bet on Labour at anything less than 2/5.
Our reading is that after Saturday’s campaigning there’s a mood of nervousness in the Labour camp but that is not matched by a big change in confidence levels amongst LD backers.
This has all resulted in very little betting and not much liquidity in the market. Over the past couple of days Labour had been pushed to 1/6 when backers were obviously feeling more bullish.
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\’What’s very telling is that currently there’s nobody offering to bet on Labour at anything less than 2/5.\’
maybe that\’s because they found out they can get 2/5 off Paddy, Mike.
John - with conventional bookmakers you can\’t trade - buy and sell positions. With the betting exchanges you can and many punters prefer the often lower odds because of this flexibility. Over the past few days Labour backers have pushed the price down to 1/6 on the exchange even though they could have got 2/5 with PaddyPower. The conventional bookies sometimes put restrictions on the amount they will accept. The exchanges don\’t - they match backer with layer.
The exchanges are a good measure of the mood in a by-election campaign.
Oh - and the exchange will stay open right until the actual declaration in the early hours of Friday morning.
\’many punters prefer the often lower odds\’
thanks for that clarification Mike ;-]
punters like that have helped me to achieve very healthy positions on just about every politics market I\’ve traded on Betfair and elsewhere over the past 2 years.
I canvassed at Hartlepool today for the Lib Dems - OK in Seaton Carew relatively posh (relatively!) Much better than Leicester South - voters supporting Lib Dem candidate and anyone but Labour - looked for William Hill in the town but nearest one Billingham! Ladbrokes and Coral not betting on the by-election. Pork Pies (from Petch\’s butcher Great Ayton - south of Middlesborough) wonderful!
Please excuse mispelling of Middlesbrough
From the info I have I think the strength of Jody Dunn\’s candidacy is going to carry her to a narrow win for the Lib Dems on Thursday.
Two new opinion polls in the aftermath of the Lib Dem conference. Firstly, a Populus poll has the Tories on 32%, Lib Dems on 29% and Labour on 28% their worst figures for twenty years. A poll in the Independent on Sunday has Labour on 32%, Cons on 30% and Lib Dems on 27%. No doubt the figures will remain volatile with Hartlepool and the remaining party conferences to come.
A third poll in the Observer - MORI has CON 33%, LAB 32%, LD 25%.
Mike -
When you posted this item, you wrote:
\”….there’s been a slight hardening in the Lib Dem price. The LDs are now at about 100/30 down from between 9/2 and 4/1. Labour has moved out from 1/5 to about 1/4.\”
At the time of writing this (about 3.00. a.m. UK time), the figures are Labour - 2/5; Lib Dem - 7/5; Tory 119/1.
It is a constant theme of yours that the crucial time for watching the odds is in the last few days, when party workers can feel how the result is shaping up. Hartlepool is beginning to look like a Lib Dem win, isn´t it?
By the way, what was the last time a Tory candidate had such heavy odds against him? And is anybody yet making a book on the chances of the Tory candidate´s losing his deposit?
John - I was looking at Mike\’s archives and he didn\’t mention the Tory odds in Hodge Hill and Leicester South but I\’d assume they may have been around the same level, given that Labour and LDs had around the same odds back then.
As for the Tories losing their deposit, if someone had a market on that my personal instinct would be to lay it, given that despite a tremendous squeeze in Leicester and Birmingham it didn\’t fall that much and I think that Hartlepool will be similar. Even if there is a bigger drop, I still think there\’d be the necessary 5% of hard Tories who\’d prevent that embarrasment. The last times I can find for a major party candidate losing their deposit in a by-election were during the 1997 Parliament - Labour in Romsey and Winchester (though the latter was arguably under unique circumstances) and the Liberal Democrats in Hamilton South.
John - I tend not to feature odds which I think are irrelevant - like those on the Tories in by-elections like these. My recall is that the Tories started at about 7/4 in Leicester South and HH and eased to 6/1 by polling day.