politicalbetting.com

Is PaddyPower’s 4/1 a good value bet?

This PaddyPower market on the next scandal to hit one of the presidential contenders has been around for some time but we have not focused on it before. Although quite fun I don’t like this sort of wager because of the lack of definition in working out what will trigger settlement.

But looking at the list we do know of one thing that will be happening very soon - the release of the Clinton tax returns - something that’s become more of an issue following Obama’s move yesterday to make public all his tax records going back to 2000.

Could fine scrutiny of the document by the media produce a “tax irregularity” scandal that would cause Paddy Power to pay out? That’s hard to judge but it might be worth a small punt.

Mike Smithson

Did you get a bet on in the new PMQs market?

With the two tabloids that are reckoned to have the most impact on public opinion, the Mail and the Sun, leading on the legal bid by the Speaker to stop MPs expenses being made public could David Cameron be considering this as his first line of attack at PMQs this lunchtime?

The Tory leader has never been known to be shy when it comes to issues raised by the tabloids and it would certainly fit in with his attempts to be a populist on the issue of what MPs claim. Last month to groans from all sides of the house he was calling at PMQs for the abolition of final salary pension schemes for new MPs.

The legal move followed a decision a few hours earlier by the information tribunal ordering that data about the housing allowances paid to 14 specific MPs, including Gordon Brown and David Cameron, be published this week. Among the other politicians included in the group are John Prescott, George Osborne, and Ming Campbell.

In what seemed like an advance move to put Brown under pressure the Telegraph is reporting that “Mr Cameron’s aides disclosed that of the £21,359 he claimed in 2005-06 more than £21,200 was for the mortgage interest paid on his constituency home in Witney, Oxfordshire. He is thought to have claimed less than £100 on utility bills and nothing on household furnishings or groceries.”

All this comes after the new betting market on Cameron’s first topic at PMQs appeared to have really taken off with hundreds of wagers being placed following the story here yesterday afternoon.

It would be interesting to know if Brown and Cameron are following this market. My guess is that their offices certainly are.

Mike Smithson

The story of Hillary’s version of a visit to Bosnia in 1996 and how she has been describing it has developed into the big story in the nomination race over the past couple of days. The CBS report above sums it up well interspersing footage taken at the time with what she said last week.

The reference to Bosnia arose as part of her case that she has experience.

For the moment this moves the story on from Obama’s Pastor to what Clinton’s spinners are describing as a “misspoke”.

Mike Smithson

Where’s the value in Ladbroke’s new market?

Ladbrokes are sticking with the innovative new betting market on what Cameron’s first question will be at PMQs tomorrow. Reproduced above are the latest prices.

My favourites are something to do with the London Mayoral election or a follow-up to Brown U-turn on the embryo bill free vote.

Mike Smithson

Who’s won the lion’s share of Pennsylvania’s newly registered Dems?

Since New Year’s Day 218,000 residents of Pennsylvania have filled in forms like the one reproduced above so that they will be eligible to vote in the crucial primary that takes place there on April 22nd.

More than 120,000 of them are new voters while a further 86,000 others were existing voters who filled in Question 9 to register as Democrats. In addition 12,000 switched to become registered Republicans. All this is the product of massive organisational operations by the two camps in the state. Getting people to fill in complex forms is not easy.

The mechanics of this election are crucial because unlike in many other states only those who are registered with a particular party are entitled to vote in the primary and to do so your form had to be in by yesterday.

So the big cross-overs from independents and Republicans that we have seen elsewhere, often on the day itself, had to have happened in PA by the deadline. This, of course, has been one of the areas where Barack Obama has had particular success and why the April 22nd primary is so challenging. The kind of flexibility between the parties that he has benefited from in other states simply does not exist.

According to the New York Times “…Some of the biggest numbers of those who switched to become Democrats were recorded in the Republican suburbs of Philadelphia, which are likely to be an important battleground in the primary. Analysts say suburbanites who registered Democratic are probably either opponents of the war in Iraq who want to vote for Senator Barack Obama or professional women who want to support Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton.”

Who knows what the outcome will be though the state’s demographics favour Hillary. One good pointer for the Democrats for November’s general election is that a total of 4,044,952 people are now registered Democrats against a total of 3,215,478 who are registered as Republicans.

In the nomination betting the Hillary price has eased over the weekend and now stands at 3.5/1.

Mike Smithson

Creating a measure that puts Hillary ahead

With Team Clinton desperately trying to get a foothold to further their argument with the super-delegates an ingenious plan has been put forward by one of Hillary’s key backers, Senator Evan Bayh of Indiana.

His idea is simple - that “the super-delegates consider the electoral votes of the states that each of them has won.”

He argued: “So who carried the states with the most Electoral College votes is an important factor to consider because ultimately, that’s how we choose the president of the United States.”

Clinton supporters like this because unlike the pledge delegate count, the popular vote or number of states won this is one measure where Hillary comes out on top.

The reason this works for Hillary is that it gets round the rigid proportional nature of delegate numbers to replace it with a winner takes all system. Clinton has done better in the bigger states but in most cases her margins have been relatively small so her delegate gains have been kept down by Obama.

This is not about re-writing the rules but providing arguments for the super-delegates to enable them to go in one direction. It acts as a counter to the strong Obama case that on all the other measures he is ahead.

Bayh himself is a charismatic and influential player and was being topped strongly a couple of years ago as a possible nominee. Clearly it is in his interest for Hillary to get it so he could follow her.

And the betting? I still don’t rule Clinton out and am maintaining positions on both Betfair and the spread markets.

Mike Smithson