Special Betting for the General Election

Political betting is a fun way of engaging in betting and following the action on the campaign trail. They say that a week is a long time in Politics and with the two leadership debates in the bag much has developed from them including a surge in Liberal Democrat support and close scrutiny of all parties’ policies for potentially forming either a majority or coalition Government.

Using the odds from https://www.bwin.com here are some of the new special bets available and my exclusive political betting tips.

It looks increasingly likely that a hung parliament, where no party holds more than 50% of the seats in the House of Commons, will be the end result of what has been a tense campaign. The odds are dropping for no overall majority and currently stand at 1/2. You can get 7/5 that one party etches out a majority, but for me this is looking increasingly unlikely as the election draws closer. The Conservatives need the largest swing since 1945 to be elected with a majority, whilst Labour must buck the trend of the polls which suggest the public would like a change. So far it appears Gordon Brown is not inspiring the voters that Labour at the right party to continue in Government and the surge in support of the Lib Dems hurts both Labour and Conservatives chances of getting enough seats to avoid a hung parliament.

There are now bets available at bwin.com on individual constituency’s results. In Morley and Outwood Antony Calvert (my old University friend) is attempting to oust Ed Balls as MP. Balls was heavily criticised in today’s media when he was forced to admit he had accepted points and a fine for driving whilst using a mobile phone. You can bet on the Conservatives winning this seat at 6/5 and the local people may be further disillusioned by Ed Balls and his latest negative PR. He is defending a majority of 9,000 in this election and remains favourite at 13/20 to hold onto his seat.

In the City of Durham, a constituency less than 10 miles from where I live, Roberta Blackman-Woods is defending a small Labour majority against the Liberal Democrat candidate David Woods. Labour are seen to be very vulnerable to losing this seat with David Woods helped by the effective performance in the first televised leadership debate by Lib Dem leader Nick Clegg. The Liberals are expected by bwin to win this seat and have odds of 2/5 to win it. Labour are outsiders with odds of 17/10 to hold the seat. There are no other real candidates in that fight, the odds for anyone else than Labour or Liberal Democrats to win City of Durham is 40/1 but I can reveal this could be 500/1 and I still would not back it, either Labour or the Liberals will win this seat.

Do you think Nigel Farage of UKIP can unseat the speaker John Bercow in his seat of Buckingham? It is unusual a candidate is fielded against the speaker but Bercow is both liked and disliked in the political world and UKIP like getting coverage any way they can. Farage is the outsider at 5/2 whilst Bercow is expected to hold at 3/10. Farage has been ridiculed for some questionable media comments and I expect UKIP’s token challenge to the speaker in this seat to ultimately fall short and see Bercow re-elected as MP and speaker of the commons.

If you believe that the Liberal Democrats will do very well and substantially increase their number of MP’s bwin.com are offering 1/2 that they will have over 81.5 MP’s when the votes are cast. I think this is highly likely and would comfortably stake £100 to win £50 on this outcome if I believed the media hype will translate into votes. The question is, do you?

The political battles are raging and we only need wait another week and a half to find out who wins. It is going to be very exciting.

By Malcolm Clarke