Next General Election

Betfair trading & Punting on politics. Be aware there is a lot of off topic discussion in this group centred on Political views.
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tallsuk
Posts: 6
Joined: Fri Jul 14, 2017 8:50 pm

Sitting here on the Sunday before the Tory Conference and I thought this would be an excellent opportunity to start a discussion about the next General Election. The main market on BF is Most Seats and there is £43k matched so far. Current back/lay prices are Con 2.08/2.1, Lab 1.95/1.96, LD 270/350 and Any Other 80/120. I can’t help thinking that there is a huge amount of value in this market already, however, I can’t see how to realise the value without taking a level of risk that makes it completely pointless. When I price the market up it feels more to me that it should be Con 1.33, Lab 4.0, LD/AO 1000+. This is of course the opposite of what the analyst and polls are saying.

The very best political betting site, politicalbetting.co.uk, give the impression that the market is offering a fair price. Looking at the GE17 and current polling it does look like Lab should be favourites. But I feel that this fails to consider some pretty basic factors in voter psychology and in trading markets. To win Lab has to win about 30 more seats or Con has to lose about 30 seats or a mix of the two. With the current political climate, I just can’t see where or how that is going to happen.

Two leadership elections have created an impression that Corbyn is going from strength to strength. I believe that while Corbyn is obviously popular, it is with a relatively small section of society. He won the leadership with 300k votes. That cannot be used as evidence of anything other than a hardcore support within the party.

Secondly, the much better than expected GE17 performance is going to be hard to repeat let alone improve on. I think it can be explained by other more obvious factors rather than support for Corbyn. The expected Con landslide massive changed voters’ expectations which has important if unintended consequences. Con voters, especially older ones, felt that they could protest by not voting assuming that Con would still win comfortably. Voters on the right wing of Lab, who would rather abstain/vote for someone else before they helped Corbyn win power (a good number of Lab MPs may fall into the category) felt that they could vote for Lab safe in the knowledge that their mortgage repayments were not under threat.

This should also be combined with the fact that at the next GE the Con will run a far better campaign. This does not mean I am a Con fan just that my nieces, aged 5, 6 and 7 could run a better campaign. Lab did not really win support but the Con really threw their away. I fully expect someone at Con HQ to realise that Corbyn is always going to attract a youth vote and that shitting over the over 60’s is not going to win a whole lot of new young voters. It will really piss off the core Con support though.

An additional factor is the youth vote. Corbyn and supporters has done a fantastic job of getting the youth vote out. They were aided by the referendum result being blamed on the young not voting. While I think Lab will continue to enjoy support from the youth I expect the volume to fall. Secondly, many of those who are currently left supporting students may well have mortgages and jobs that mean the are not quite so rebellious next time. Assuming they will remain with Lab is dangerous.

Of course, one key factor in this market is going to be Brexit, at least it should be. Lab are struggling every bit as much as Con and not helped by the fact that Corbyn is one of the few senior politicians who is a genuine leaver. While he will (quite rightly) make a big deal about ensuring the Big Business does not dictate a Brexit that is best for Big Business it will be difficult for Lab to become a home for disgruntled remainers.

What this means that possibly the weakest Con frontbench ever are very likely to win by default and with a reasonable majority. As a citizen, I find this pathetic situation embarrassing, however, as a gambler it offers lots of opportunities. The problem I have though is that while the market should offer excellent trading opportunities it may not change for 4 years. Yet, it is very vulnerable to all sorts of outside influences which means that any time spent in the market has to result in a reasonable profit which is going to be impossible if the price remains the same until 4 weeks or less before the actual vote. I may as well wait until it is actually called.

So, I have two questions: What do you think of my analysis of the market and even if you disagree with my analysis can you see any way I can take advantage of my perceived value without just gambling that the next major world event goes my way?
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