politicalbetting.com

http://www.econ.umn.edu/~amoro/Research/presprobs.html

As we move into the final thirty-six hours can we recommend this site which brings polls, electoral vote predictions and Tradesports prices all together.

Everything is moving so fast and Betfair alone has now seen more than �4m of matched bets on the race.

Bush 55.5 Kerry 44.5Iowa Political Futures Market
Bush 54 Kerry 46 Tradesports exchange
Bush 1.71 Kerry 2.38 Betfair exchange
Bush 3/5 Kerry 5/4 UK bookmaker best price

Polling round-up showing variance of margin on last poll
Bush 46 Kerry 46 Fox
Bush 47 Kerry 48 DCorps
Bush 48 Kerry 48 Zogby tracking
Bush 48 Kerry 48 ARG
Bush 49 Kerry 48 ABC

The big change has been Fox which has moved from a Bush 6% lead to them level-pegging.

Will the election be a tie?
There’s been a lot of speculation that this could be the outcome and the latest prediction is that there is a 3.25% chance of this happening – or 35/1. So the current William Hill price of 12/1 is not good value.

Betfair General Election Date Market – Jan-March 2005

There’s been a lot of activity on the election date markets following reports in the Sunday Times that Tony Blair is thinking of going to the country in February – not the 05/05/05 that everybody has been predicting.

The above Betfair price chart shows the price fluctuations but it’s now settled down. Full prices here.

Certainly there has been a good run of opinion polls for Labour taking the party out of the low 30s where they had been languishing for months. The polls include:
CON 33% LAB 39% LD 17% UKIP 4%. Communicate Research – Independent.
CON 32% LAB 36%, LD 22% UKIP 5%. YouGov – Telegraph
CON 31% LAB 37%, LD 23%. UKIP 4% – ICM Guardian

In spite of all the splits and rows about who should be leader UKIP continues to impose serious damage on the Tories. There is an argument for Labour to go while the going is good. Tony Blair does not need reminding, however, that the last February election, in 1974, saw Edward Heath’s Tories fail to win a majority and Harold Wilson returning to Number 10. From a practical standpoint an election when the evening are long is likely to depress turnout which could hinder Labour.

Some other figures that Tony Blair might like to ponder:-
1992 General Election Polls – Overstatement of Labour margin 9-10%
1997 General Election Polls – Overstatement of Labour margin 3.5%
2001 General Election Polls – Overstatement of Labour margin 6.6%

In a General Election situation where Tony Blair could be accused of “cutting and running” it only requires the UKIP dimension to evaporate a bit and you have a completely different ball game.

We are not convinced.

Could the pollsters’ UK failings hold the secret of next Tuesday?

For political gamblers this election could not be closer and it’s going to come down to how you read the opinion polls – both state and national. Of the five latest, three have moved to Bush and two have moved to Kerry.

Polling round-up showing variance of margin on last poll
Bush 50 Kerry 45 Fox Kerry +2
Bush 47 Kerry 48 DCorps Bush +1
Bush 46 Kerry 47 Zogby tracking Kerry +1
Bush 46 Kerry 46 TIPP tracking Bush +2
Bush 50 Kerry 44 Newsweek Bush +3

The big issue that polling experts are debating is what will happen to those who say they are still undecided – but will vote. How will they split between the incumbent and the challenger?

It’s on the incumbency split that this election will be decided.

One theory that certainly chimes with the years of underpolling of the Tories in the UK is that Kerry supporters might be more likely to tell this to a machine in an automated poll than “to admit to a fellow citizen that they were going to abandon a likeable, steadfast, patriotic wartime leader and vote for a dull, equivocating, aristocratic former anti-war activist.”

There’s hard evidence that this can happen from the 2001 UK General Election where Rasmussen’s interviewer-free polls were the only ones to get the Tory share correct. With a single exception all polls where those surveyed were interviewed underestimated the Tories. But is the US the same?

The “Mystery Pollster” writes this of Survey USA – which does automated polls. I think I see evidence of this in the polls by SurveyUSA in Florida, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Michigan. In each of those states, SUSA has Bush matching the RealClearPolitics average but has Kerry running a few points higher. Their surveys always show a higher undecided than most other surveys, and Jay Leve, SurveyUSA’s director has always speculated it is because their recorded interview better simulates the solitary experience the voting booth. At the same time, I see an opposite pattern in Iowa, Missouri and Colorado – so perhaps I’m just data mining. I want to watch this closely over the weekend.

If this proves to be correct it will completely change the way we look at polling for the coming UK General Election. Meanwhile there’s been a distinct move back to Bush in all the betting markets in what looks like a response to the Osama video.

Betting round up – 0730 GMT Sunday
Bush 55.7 Kerry 44.3 Iowa Political Futures Market
Bush 55 Kerry 45 Tradesports exchange
Bush 1.75 Kerry 2.32 Betfair exchange
Bush 8/13 Kerry 6/4 UK bookmaker best price

Another video drives the markets

Gamblers on both sides of the Atlantic have reacted in a fairly cool manner to the video tape of Osama Bin Laden that was released last night.

There were sharp moves to Bush as people took the view that this would remind electors of the ever-present terrorist threat. Then there has been a gradual easing back after some commentators observed that Osama’s “return” was another reminder of a failure of the Bush administration to capture Osama lending weight to the charge that by going into Iraq the President has had “his eye off the ball” of the main threat.

There is no poll evidence yet to test public reaction and the key issue is how Bush and Kerry play it this weekend. Our view is that it will just reinforce opinion on either side.

The off-shore Tradesports exchange initially went to Bush 55 Kerry 45 but that has now come back quite a lot and is now trading at not much more than before the Osama video. The Iowa Electronic Exchange market has had a bigger move from Kerry but, as the Economist points out this week, investors on this market can only risk relatively small sums and so the price might not be quite as sensitive.

The volatile UK Betfair exchange moved sharply to Bush and is now coming back a bit.

Betting round up – 5.30 am BST Saturday
Bush 52.5 Kerry 47.5Iowa Political Futures Market
Bush 53.5 Kerry 46.5 Tradesports exchange
Bush 1.81 Kerry 2.18 Betfair exchange
Bush 8/11Kerry 23/20 UK bookmaker best price