Political Betting – Is it Worth it?
In recent times political betting has become a staple of the online betting world.
But should you ever bet on politics and if so how do you do it?
Firstly whether or not you bet on politics is as much a personal choice as who you bet for.
In theory there should be no reason why you cannot research politics just as you would a sport such as football for sports betting.
A popular market in politics betting is “next leader”. Currently at the time this article went to press the conservative party in the UK are ready to appoint a new leader.
The odds are as follows on Oddschecker.com(odds subject to change):
As you can see Penny Mordaunt is odds on favourite. The blue colour indicates the odds are shortening on oddschecker.com. In fact last time I checked the other day, Penny Mordaunt was around 6/1 previously with Rishi Sunak around 2/1 which shows just how dramatically the odds can change.
To make the best bet possible it makes sense to research the market you are betting on. To understand why someone may be favourite to lead the country, the most valuable information is polls. Polls give data on a leaders popularity or people’s voting intention so they are often the most reliable information in politics to predict a future leader.
Generally Yougov should be the main polling site you use, but read the newspapers as they will all be reporting various data to back up their articles with links you can follow to research.
Given that Penny Mordaunt’s odds have shortened it’s no surprise to see this headline in the guardian newspaper…
The yougov poll in question commissioned for The Times newspaper is below…
Why is this important?
This data shows that a trend amongst Conservative Party members is that Penny Mordaunt is there preferred leader currently. As conservative party members (total around 200,000) get the final vote (from the final two candidates) this is a strong indication of who will get the job.
Why are the odds still around 4/6 for Penny Mordaunt, what could stop her from winning?
Like with betting on sports, things can change or go wrong. Here are a few reasons why this Poll could be incorrect…
- Over time conservative party members change their minds
- Penny Mordaunt says something that decreases her popularity
- Other candidates say something to increase their popularity
As you may have already gathered betting on politics is not for the faint hearted. In our opinion unless you are a political whizz kid with a knack for data it is best reserved as a fun bet for entertainment value and hopefully you get lucky.
That is not to say don’t do your research and try to win the bet, but as with all betting only bet what you can afford to lose as political betting is not an exact science and nothing is certain.
If you do wish to bet on politics why not take a free bet at a bookie here who all offer political betting on a range of markets.