IG call time on BrandIndex betting
April 24th, 2007
Have PBers been too good for them?
IG Index told me this morning that they were closing their BrandIndex spread market on the changing popularity of politicians which has been operation since January. Punters sought to guess whether a selection of politicians would go up or down and “buy” or “sell” accordingly.
The ratings were based on YouGov’s daily BrandIndex surveys of thousands of members of its pollution panel.
Each week for the site a little group led by Peter the Punter sought to work out what the best bets were and those who have followed the recommendations have turned a nice little profit. Thanks guys for all your work.
The problem from IG’s point of view was that most of the traffic was generated by this site. Efforts to get a national newspaper involved by publishing the ratings every week were not successful.
The market also required close management by the bookmaker because, unlike a betting exchange, the firm set the odds which needed constant monitoring.
Let’s hope that this venture resurfaces in some form because it was fun and for some quite profitable.
Mike Smithson
MessageSpace Advertising
Warning on French Presidential Election
Many punters have been putting their money on Sarko to win, before they know who Bayrou is endorsing. This is highly unwise.
Note it is likely that Bayrou, with over 18% of the vote, will swing the election to whoever he endorses. This has already happened 3 times in the last few decades, where the front-runner in round 1 actally lost in the final round. Bettors beware. If Bayrou backs Sego, you will lose your money on Sarko. Make sure you have a decent hedge, or get out and wait until Bayrou makes the expected statement.
I back my ability to pick potentially popular politicians. I noted John Reid as a superb TV performer when he was a junior and always thought that David Davis was a disastrous potential Tory leader before the blue rinse cottoned on.
I still don’t see why Straw ruled himself out of the Labour leadership. I can only assume he doesn’t want it, but I’d say he’s the man the tories wouldn’t want. He reeks of Middle England.
A great shame on the BrandIndex - Perfectly understandable from IG’s point of view - to make an effective book they need people with opposing views, and thus really want a wider market than this site. Let’s give credit to IG for trying something, and hope that it doesn’t deter them from Politics in general.
1 - Will L, we’ve covered this issue many times.
Bayrou is unlikely to endorse anyone (as one of his lieutenants actually said this morning) for two related reasons. The first is that only half of the 18% he garnered at the weekend is anything like a core UDF vote and that (we know this from detailed polling) is split 75/25% for Sarkozy. The remaining half was always going to hold its nose and vote Royal in the second round because it is made up of disgruntled socialists.
The second reason, as Chris(from Paris) has spelled out is that Bayrou has a problem with parliamentary arithmetic. Okay, he’s won the UDF’s candidate (himself) the largest presidential vote since Giscard but that is little comfort to the remaining 26 deputies running for re-election in June. Most of them were elected because the UMP didn’t run against them in 2002 and split the center-right vote while two actually ran as UMP candidates. Five are nursing marginals that will fold to various shades of the left is Sarkozy fields a UMP candidate against them. André Santini, a UDF deputy who is campaigning for Sarkozy, predicts that 12 MPs are ready to declare for the UMP presidential candidate.
In this context, it looks like Bayrou will stay neutral and concentrate on setting up his new Centre or Democratic Party to unite the centre-right and the centre-left and concentrate on maximising support in June. His eyes are already on 2012 but those of his party deputies and activists certainly are not.
IG, The barstartds! Bookies are just no fun, not allowing us to take their money
If Sarkozy wins ‘the big one’ how likely are the French to elect a left wing government in the summer? This kept happening during Mitterrand’s time as President (ring wing govs in his case) and led to the hopeless years of stalemate and uneasy ‘cohabitation’.
5. Look upon it more as ’saving you from yourself’ Benedict!
I’ve done the ‘Yougov’ ‘negative and positive attitudes to politicians’ survey, never realised it was used for betting……
Of course I suppose it would be possible to cut out the middle man and set up sort of cooperative betting exchange connected to this site. The advantage is that it would be overseen by people with an interest and knowledge of the subject. Perhaps avoiding the problems with unclear definitions and missing markets. As an exchange then the IG Index problem would be avoided.
If it was set up to operate on a lower margin than Betfair - with unambitious profit goals, though adequate to recompense the backers, then it might attract the bulk of this rather specialised business. It might be better if financed by a group of us, with no one holding more than say 10% of the equity.
7 - Unfortunatly, you would potentially still have the problem of all the players being on the same side (particularly if pb.com was the main punter referall source) and thus no actively traded market… It is potentially an interesting idea, effectively trying to undercut Betfair on price is potentially a losing business model, but focusing on specialisations might be (almost) profitable.
1 Sorry, Will, I can’t agree. Bayrou is unlikely to direct his troops in this manner, for all the reasons outlined by Mr Chip (Mnsr Pommes Frites?) and more. They would be unlikely to follow slavishly anyway.
Lennon and Icarus
I agree with your remarks about IG, Lennon. They are to be congratulated.
Icarus’s idea has much merit and I know a number of people, myself included, have been thinking on similar lines for a while. Perhaps now that Mike has finished his book, he will have time to think about this and similar ideas.
On a related theme, I intend to write a short piece on Tipping Lines soon. It occurs to me that the site acts as a free and informal one already and perhaps there is scope for regularising this aspect of the threads.
Is this our famous pb.com regular?
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/surrey/6586637.stm
“… a YouGov poll, commissioned by the SNP, which showed that 47% of Scots believe Labour’s campaign has been negative, compared to just 12% who do not. The same poll also showed that only 4% of voters say Labour’s campaign will make them more likely to vote for the party, compared to 22% who say it makes it less likely.”
http://www.theherald.co.uk/politics/news/display.var.1349720.0.0.php
11. Too young.
11 Too young, Jonathan.
Anyway, this bloke, as you can see, is hale and hearty. Jack isn’t feeling too good. Mnsr Bayrou’s defeat will have cost our Jack a pretty penny. Can you imagine anything more excruciating than a Scot being separated from his money?
11 - what that mere youngster! remember JackW is 104
He should have bought on a spread age 97-98. What a “great” reason to live. At what point would the hitman be called?
16 Jonathan
Once upon a time, life insurance was as interesting as this. There used to be instruments called Tontines, whereby everybody put, say, £100 into the pot, and the last one left alive collected the lot.
16 Jonatan
When the Queen Mother was in her eighties, she was very infirm. A friend of mine, seeing her at Sandown, decided she was due to go off to the Great Racecourse In The Sky. The next day, he phoned his bookies and took out a spread bet, selling at £100 per year for each year under 90 when she popped off.
What he hadn’t known was that her apparent infirmity was due to an operable hip condition. When it was rectified shortly thereafter, she was bouncing around like a spring chicken.
We all know how long she went on for. Cost my pal £1,100. It would have been less, but the security round her was pretty tight.
16 BBCi quote “He said in recent months he had been keeping watch for “any hooded groups from William Hill standing in the street”, so that he could avoid them.”
18 What enlightened times they were, Augustus. These days the PC mob would step in, as they did with the infamous office sweepstake, known as The Death Pool.
You drew lots for famous, elderly people - The Pope, Ian Paisley, Nelson Mandela etc - and paid in £1 per week. If your OAP croaked first, you took the pool. Management banned it when it came to their attention. Can’t imagine why.
Joking apart does anyone have any news of Jack W? - Best wishes to him - hoping for a speedy and full recovery.
22 Icarus, would I take the pi*s out of him if I thought there was any chance of his position being grave?
Why is the SNP price on Betfair contracting? I thought that highly esteemed polling organisation, McMakitup, had indicated Labour were in the lead.
21. The last member of a dead pool I set up in 1998 (!) died yesterday (Yeltsin). The others were Ronald Reagan, the Queen Mother, George Best, and the Pope. All lasted somewhat longer than expected.
25 The pool I had in mind, Scally, was run in an extremely large office and had literally hundreds of…er …’candidates’. The winnings were potentially very large. Management justified its intervention on the grounds that the sums were large enough to be an inducement to help nature a little.
Honestly.
26 !!!
test
deathlist.net
27 One of the candidates was Sir Clement Freud. The matter came to management’s attention after some fool wrote to him and asked how he was. Freud wrote an article about it in The Racing Post. Freud’s column is always a laugh but this one was a classic.
It could be a good way for Constituency fundraising…..464 members of Parliament at £1 per week. Perhaps that had better be 463, in order to exclude the sitting member.
I have a question regarding betfair, the commission they charge is it 5% of your total or just your profit, so if you back something for £10 at 1.5 is it 5% of £5 or £15?
7, 10 - The more I think about this, the more I think that it has merit. The site already acts on this level very occasionaly (HenryG vs Nick Palmer on Hain achieving deputy nomination; Icarus vs Prince Monalulu - bet void; numerous ‘I’ve just put x on Betfair if anyone wants to match’). Ideally it would be able to be a middle-man that is financially trusted, as well as some computer nerdish stuff to view, match, put up etc. potential bets. Developing further could include betting along the lines of Paul Maggs election comps if requested (simple sweepstake) and others.
32 - profit
33 - In the early days of betting exchanges there was a site which tried to operate along those lines (punters choose the bets the site just acts as the middle man). Unsurprisingly Betfair’s model (Betfair choose the markets) proved more enduring.
Reminds me of a betting story……
City gent walking past a Sainsbury sees a man selling the Big Issue.
“It’s O’Halloran isn’t it? You were a seargeant in my regiment. What on earth went wrong?”
“Well my wife died and I lost my job and my son got sent down and my daughter….”
“Well you have have been unlucky! Listen…. I heard last night that the Pope had died and they’re keeping it quiet for 24 hours. Here’s £200. Go to the bookies and take a bet that the Pope will be dead by tomorrow. You should get at least 5000 to 1! That should put you back on your feet!”
Two weeks later the same city gent was walking past Sainsbury and there was O’Halloran still selling the Big Issue.
“What went wrong man? I gave you an absolute cert and even gave you your stake! Didn’t you go to the bookies and place your bet?
“Yes sir, that I did!”
“Well what the Hell went wrong?”
“I did it as a double with the Archbishop of Canterbury”
***SHOCK POLL GIVES SEGO LEAD IF JUST 1% SWING (FROM MOST ACCURATE POLLSTER ON ROUND 1 - SONDAGE)***
http://fr.news.yahoo.com/24042007/202/sondage-sofres-sarkozy-51-royal-49.html
I had a hunch it would be closer than some have claimed. But this gap is closing much faster than I anticiapted. How can Sego have gained so much momentum so fast?!!
Is it just possible that Sego will win?
“Is it just possible that Sego will win?”
I hope so. I’ll lose £750 but my favourite restaurateur will be vindicated!!!
If Sego wins I will lose alot of money! I should have kept my hedge! Oh well, here we go all over again.
24. I noticed that Will Hill withdrew the most seats Scot. Parl. bet much earlier than usual today - have all those Labour activists flooded them with money on Labour?!!
Note that if Bayrou does back Sego - then it really is all over. Sego will win. Given that the race has suddenly become so close, this will tip her over into victory.
I was thinking of a proper operation using bet exchanges and spread exchanges - We need more than just us to actually use it - after all over £1m has been matched on the leadership of the Labour party.
We would have bumpy turnover as elections are not as frequent as horse races. But we would be better at providing punters with information sources, and might become the preferred site for those round the world who think they know the outcome - e.g. Rik W.
Hm O/T But Rod “Rottweiler” Richards has attacked his former party today and urged people not to vote for them. I’m sure the local Tories will be absolutely delighted, should be worth a couple of thousand votes for them at aleast………….
LOL! Will L are you the French Jonathan or something? You sound like a Gallic Snowflake 5.
TNS-Sofres weren’t the most accurate pollster.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/French_presidential_election,_2007#Opinion_polling
Margin of error +/-3%. Rogue poll?
43 - Fair enough, and I kinda agree - was just looking at development stages along the way that would be needed / possible. Do you want to chuck me an email to discuss further?
Icarus - your comments about some different structure for political betting are timely. I have been having discussions with two separate psrties over a specialised service which would give us an input on new markets. Can you drop me an email?
33 Lennon
I think there is a world of difference between small stakes charity bets with Nick Palmer, and serious betting between posters, and think that the nature/tone of the site might take a turn for the worse if we were betting agsinst each other rather than all on the same side against Paddy Power and Will Hill.
In addition, I wonder how much co-operation/funding/goodwill etc the site gets from the bookies and exchanges as a site that encourages betting that would change radically if we were to go into competition with them and try to take their business. Perhaps Mike S could clarify.
If Chris from Paris is around (or anyone else equally qualified) could you do the following analysis:
Assume all the far right vote switches to Sarkozy and all the far left vote switches to Royal.
Where would that leave Sarkozy and Royal before any reallocation of the Bayrou vote?
Then it should be possible to work out what % of the Bayrou vote each candidate would need to win.
I realise this is a bit simplistic but it should at least give an indicative idea of what chance Royal has.
Re 46
Don’t mean to brag but I think I managed to post up the SHOCK POLL within 10 minutes of it being published online! Note this poll is getting wide coverage in France.
It is not unrealistic to say Sego will go into the lead within the next 10 days.
I’m getting out of Sarko. If anyone wants to back Sarko they can bet on my lays off Betfair.
I have this hunch that history will repeat itself and Sarko will have a surprise defeat to Sego.
52 - from your flurry of posts on this thread, I’m amazed to hear that you were ever “in to” Sarko in the first place!
Throughout the world whenever voters have had the chsnce of using the ballot to elect a woman leader for the firmly time they have done so. Why should France be different?
Calm down, Will. You are reacting to one poll, which has produced a counter-intuitive result out of line with the others, notably Ipsos. It is however within the MOE so is not quite as startling as you suppose.
Wait till you have seen one or two more. And then wait some.
Sarkozy and Royal have a TV debate due, I believe. Ever seen her on the stump? She’s not the greatest performer you’ve ever seen.
I have a lovely free bet on Sego. I bought her last week at 10 on the Spreadfair 10-25 market. If Sarky wins I’m even - if Sego does it I’m nearly £1000 up.
Mike Smithson
Looking at the WA assembly market you can get 1.09 on Labour having the most seats. Would anyone say theres a greater than 8.25% chance of Labour not doing it?
55. I agree with Peter. There will be some movement in the markets reacting to the inevitable outlier polls or some other piece of news. Might create trading opportunities.
Willhill has slashed Sarko to 1.25, so nothing to gain there anymore.
Not a great deal happening on Betfair re French President. Bayrou available at 600 Le Pen at only 400 - I wouldnt read too much into it though!
57. NOt doing what exactly.
having the most seats
61. Not very generous. As has often been pointed out Wales is different to Scotland so the top up system means their weakness their everywhereness becomes a strength. Thus while I expect them to take a hiding relatively speaking in the Constituencies thanks to a large measure of tactical voting for the whoever it is that can beat Labour candidate, the list system is likely to compensate them quite a bit while penalising other parties who have distinct areas if strength. Thus if the Tories pick up Cardiff North (certain), and Vale of Glamorgan(Quite possible) it’l be by by David Melding on the list.
It’ll really would take something mega mega extraordinary for them to not have most seats, and those odds don’t refelect that.
35 - flutter.com was it? Ah, memories…
Yes so 1.09 (£9 profit for £100 stake) is value?
64. You mean to bet on Labour gaining mostr seats £100 stake for £9 return sorry thought you mean’t trhe other way round. Well I suppose it is, but I wouldn’t consider it a value bet and of course while it is mega mega unlikely it is just about conceivably possible so the risk to reward ratio ain’t great. Much better value lying in popular vote shares and who’ll finish second I think.
I’ll stick a tenner on, with that amount I’ll be happier to lose my stake!
So may be Labour should elect a woman-leader to save them from meltdown at the next GE. Could Brown do a turn?
Maybe Snowflake could step into the breach
New ICM poll
Conservatives - 37%(-4)
Labour - 30% (-1)
Lib Dem - 21% (+3)
Others - 12%
http://politics.guardian.co.uk/localgovernment/story/0,,2064652,00.html
69. Good poll for Libdems who have probably raised their profile directly at local level with local campaign stuffs and co.
Bashful Robert Waller has just put a brief post about his new magnificent tome on the previous thread .
The April 2006 ICM poll (so in the run up of 2006 locals) had Con 34, Lab 32, LD 23.
So it would imply a 2.5% from Lab to Con compared to this period in 2006
69: Interesting and not all that different from CR…Labour’s doldrums have been well-discussed here, but I’m not sure it’s just the local elections that are boosting the LDs and depressing the Tory vote. There is a certain impatience becoming evident with the Tories as well - one can only go so far with interviews urging people to be nicer etc.
On the Cameron/Brown question the results are:
Conservatives - 40%
Labour - 28%
Lib Dem - 20%
There seems to be a reminiscing effect for Tony Blair but for Gordon Brown it doesn’t look as good:
“That strengthening of Mr Cameron’s underlying position is mirrored in two other character questions. He has a six-point lead over Mr Brown as the man voters think has the most potential as prime minister, 43% to 37%.
He also has an 11-point lead as the person voters think would be most likely to take Britain in the right direction. When asked in September last year, voters picked him by six points over Mr Brown, 31% to 26%. Now he scores 45% to Mr Brown’s 34%.”
69. Very good, but I suspect it probably downplays the Tories but only by a point or two. I have certainly felt YouGov 14-16% Libeal Dem shares were faintly ludicrous at prsent. Extrapolated what shares in May would this mean. I think we can all expect a Tory spike immediately after just like last time.
71. Any more betting gossip from West Offa’s dyke at all.
74. DC’s Con lead over GB’s Lab has gone down from 15% last month to 12%.
67 - Did Britain’s first Woman leader pass you by?
75. Punter, does icwales do predictions in their constituency profiles for all seats or just for some?
In the online version, there’s usually just the profile, some comments and the candidates, but Newport West profile had their predictions too. Did they do it for others too?
75 No new news from Wales , Punter , awaiting the forecast new polls on WA with interest .
On a more morbid note Newcastle Wingrove ward is the latest to have had the poll put back because of the death of the Green candidate . This makes 8 I have heard od so far .
£300,000 on French election on betfair.
£8,500,000 on current Sri Lanka / NZ match
puts things in perspective, eh?
There are indications Bayrou may be getting ready to back Sego.
http://fr.news.yahoo.com/24042007/290/ump-et-ps-composent-avec-le-casse-tete-centriste.html
78. Apparently they make predictions for all. I have them emailed. Evidently they re not swift about putting them up. TBH they’re playing it vey safe and predicting the likeliest winner in each case. They’re certainly not sticking their necks out and predicting shocks even in a year like this. Can you number crunch for May at all from these polls.
79. I think I smell fear in Labour ranks though. The non denial about talks with Plaid may indicate the great depth of their concern, it may also indicate Plaid concern about the Tories.
81 - he may, but his supporters surely won’t.
83 - The article doesn’t say that, you have to be thinking very wishfully (or desperate to get out of a tricky betting position) to read anything like that into it. At best it’s neutral, putting forwards the possibilities.
If Bayrou chooses either way, it’s political suicide. We’ll know if he’s got a death wish tomorrow afternoon.
69 Just that touch more credible than this morning’s poll - but telling the same sort of story.
BTW How much is the Waller book.
New thread - “Is Gord making ground on the Bullingdon mob?”
82.”TBH they’re playing it vey safe and predicting the likeliest winner in each case”
In safe Lab seats their pieces are almost identical with the “just apathy can trouble Labour here” sort of lines
Yes but even in Newport West and Cardiff/Caerphilly seats where there is a chance albeit slim of something happening they go with Labour hold line. Can smell hack concern to svoid egg on face in this case very much.
56. Mike Smithson. I conclude that you must have bought for roughly £60 a point? So first part of bet you risked £600 and currently could sell at 12.7 so you could get out with a £162 profit if you wanted? ie odds on first half of bet between 1/3 and 2/7 that Royal got through if you sold now? These odds seem about right for first leg to me.
By letting the bet run then your £162 has a potential of turning in to £900, assuming my original stakes were correct. So odds on 2nd leg 11/2? Better than available elsewhere.
Is this reasoning correct Mike or anyone else who chances upon this post and gives a damn?
89. I saw that in Newport West they think the sitting AM is popular and has personal vote (maybe thery’re right as Lab got a large swing against in 2001 and 2005 GEs, but they did ok in 2001 Welsh Assembly Elections)
11. Which idiot at William Hill gave odds of 250/1 to a ninety-year-old to reach 100? The probability of reaching 100 is only about 1 in 100, even for a newborn.
29. The deathlist website prediction list for 1989 included two people who were already dead, i.e. William Hartnell 1975 and Wilfred Bramble 1985.
90. Odds calculated for 2nd leg should be 9/2.