Responding to MT in the other thread about election predictions:

I've been convinced the actual result will be the same as in 2015 but this offers little to no value.

The market seems to be priced intelligently currently. It is probably best not to bet.

I will have a small wager on Labour to win most seats since I feel the public has too much faith in the pollsters. I'm not sure they understand how difficult the pollsters are finding this election.

Ok thanks. Do you think there is value in backing Labour over 218.5 seats or Conservatives under 370.5 seats? Both are around evens.

[QUOTE=GBV;52333838]

There might well be - I suspect either Labour will do much better than any one expects or they will perform as the poll average predicts. There's either going to be no error or a lot of error. I can't say bet the farm because I'm not a fan of those markets due to the vig and don't have enough direct experience.

I'd shop around for an excellent price if you are going to bet that. You can often some real outliers even among the major bookies.

Yes, the evens line for Labour seems to range anything between 195 and 230 seats.

Also articles like this make me think Conservatives will win a comfortable majority: https://www.theguardian.com/politics...p-urges-voters

Summary of article: Polls have moved towards Labour, but politicians have not noticed any dramatic shift towards Labour when out campaigning

There is no dramatic shift in the polls. Last 5 polls by ICM show the gap as 14, 14, 12, 11, 11.

If you still think their methodology is correct then there is not reason to change your mind now.

[QUOTE=MultiTabling;52336250

Summary of article: Polls have moved towards Labour, but politicians have not noticed any dramatic shift towards Labour when out campaigning[/QUOTE]

Interesting. This was something polticians said retrospectively about 2015.

The problem: it was retrospective. Politicians aren't that competent with stats in general and are probably as vulnerable to selective memory syndrome as everyone else is.

You have an additional problem here: the candidates saying this stuff have a vested interest in playing down a Corbyn win since they are generally more popular than he is.

I'm not sure it's a good idea to look at only 1 poll. YouGov predicts a hung parliament. Survation puts Conservatives ahead just 1 point. Which methodology is correct?

Yes you're right, they could have vested interests. I wasn't going to bet based on this information, it just cast some doubt in my mind.

It's a difficult election to analyse because of conflicting information. For example, I don't know if working class people will a) vote Conservative for a hard Brexit b) vote Corbyn because they hate establishment politicians + hate Tory austerity c) not be enthusiastic about either and just vote UKIP

Old people, I don't know if they will vote Conservative because of hard Brexit/hate Corbyn or vote Labour because of Tory policies that hit old people eg. dementia tax.

Young people, I don't know if they will even bother to vote at all.

I've also seen people say they won't vote Labour because they can't stand Diane Abbot in the shadow cabinet. She's had plenty of car crash interviews and bad publicity. Not good for Labour.

If people have spare money to bet on British politics (which looks unlikely but who knows) then Jeremy Corbyn to go before 7am on election day "No" at 1.02 looks like a good bet. You could get into that, collect the 2% boost and then still bet on the main result before polls close.

We'll see.

What am I missing here? I thought he announced withdrawal from Paris? Is the hang up on "unconditional?"

It's rare that an international treaty is set up in such a way that a possible method of withdrawal is "oral declaration by head of government".

But all he has to do is "publicly announce the United States' unconditional withdrawal." It doesn't have to be effective by any date whatsoever. It seems like the PredictIt standard here is literally oral declaration by head of government.

1. It's not a treaty, it's an agreement signed by Barack Obama
2. The "unconditional withdrawal" clause refers only to the underlying treaty, the UNFCCC, which Trump did not remove us from or imply that he would
3. Trump has so far made a speech, and that's about it. We have no concrete evidence of formal steps taken to eject us from the agreement.

That is a good bet, nice find. Betfair has a lot of these if you look around for them.
You could probably make a decent living out of stuff like this if you were prepared to commit vast funds. Very few people would want to risk hundreds of thousands on stuff like this though, which is why they tend to be value bets.

So has anyone bet on the election and if so, what bets? Or are you all keeping quiet about it?

I had Tories < 370.5 @ 2.2 for a smallish bet because I thought it was thinnish value.

I wouldn't be too surprised to lose it.

Just put a few quid on UKIP to get no seats at 1.15 - looks like a steal unless I'm missing something Where are they going to get a seat from?

Seems like a decent bet.

Well they could get one in the north of england somewhere. Working class voters might revert to UKIP instead of Tory. That's what put me off that bet.

Will probably win but questionable value.

Firstly in a climate where polls were massively off in 2015 very difficult to rule anything out. Second unskilled, uneducated voters who vote UKIP tend not to want to talk to pollsters (or anybody, they are kind of hateful bastards).

I have gone for Lib Dems under 17.5 seats @ 1.31. I got those odds on smarkets betting exchange, which aren't available anymore. There wasn't much liquidity, but I could still get a decent sized bet on.

Low odds, but I think there is an extremely high probability of this happening. Lib Dems have consistently polled in the 6-9% region. They need to outperform their polls by at least 6% to have any realistic chance of reaching 18 seats. Lib Dem voters don't normally lie/not reveal their voting intention to pollsters. So I think these poll numbers are quite accurate. Equally I think young people will vote for Corbyn/not bother turning out. Farron has been uninspiring, led a poor campaign overall and alienated 52% of the country with his stance on Brexit. Unless Lib Dems make significant gains in Remain seats in the south east, Lib Dems will perform badly and shouldn't get many seats.

As far as betting on Tory/Labour majority or number of Tory/Labour seats, too much is unknown. I don't know what turnout will be among young people (they historically don't turn out, but Corbyn is an exception and he's held some massive rallies around the country with big noisy crowds of young people), I don't know if working class will vote in huge numbers for Tory because of Brexit, I don't know if old voters will abandon the Tory party because of their policies on social care/dementia tax. Polls are all over the place, May has run an awful campaign. Therefore, I've stayed out of it.

That leaves individual constituency bets, which I've also stayed out of.


edit: now watch as Lib Dems pick up 25 seats and I look like a fool

Well you may be right but polls have to be massively off for them to get close to winning a seat - I'm struggling to find any seats where they are projected to even come second. And they were struggling to hold any council seats at the locals and national polls have dipped since then.

Not much here.

Won "Corbyn to make it to next election" at 1.98 on 10 Jan and 1.06 on 20 Apr) closed out to a freeroll (i.e. break even if it doesn't happen) at 1.01 on 9 May.

Lost Year of next UK election 2020 or later at 1.65 on 2 Oct 2016.

I have a Labour for a safe Labour seat in NE England at an average of 1.15.

All small bets

I have a bigger position on no in/out EU referendum before 2019 at 1.19 though almost any result tonight is fine for that - in the short term it will move more if Tories win.

I also have a tiny freeroll on no Scottish Referendum before 2019.

I don't like betting on these markets that won't settle for a few years. Too long of a wait till you win. If you even do win.

Lib Dems on 14 seats according to exit poll. I'm sweating on my bet now.

I also forgot that I took a bet on No Overall Majority but cashed that out several days ago for a profit. I wish I didn't cash it out now lol.

True. I was expecting to be able to close it out to a freeroll a lot sooner.

Anyone watching from abroad have a better stream than
http://www.freeintertv.com/view/id-2328 ?

Early days so far, but No Overall Majority looks likely to win. 1.23 on Betfair.

I should have stuck with my original prediction of a hung parliament, which I kept recommending to people a couple of weeks ago at odds of almost 10 (I don't know if anyone was reading my posts on that ). I could have made an absolute killing! It was clearly the value pick, even if it does go on to lose narrowly. Ah well, I guess everything is so much easier with hindsight.

I got a decent sized bet @ 1.25 on Tories to win under 377.5 seats on smarkets exchange about an hour ago.

No clue about Lib Dem vote. Hopefully they still get less than 18 seats.

the fact that I bet tories >400 seats was the clincher for you I think. You arguably owe me a drink.