Betfair has its say as May calls for General Election

Indeed, the firm sees little hope of a changing of the guard with the Conservative Party overwhelming favourites to win the most seats (93% chance) and an overall majority (85% chance – party needs 326 seats for this eventuality). Betfair’s markets suggest the most one-sided election in over a decade and mirror the betting for Labour’s landslide victory in 2001. The markets will do little to comfort beleaguered Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn.

Betfair Announce Major Interest As Election Fever Mounts

Betfair Politics’ recorded £750,000 in betting within the first 24 hours on its Betfair exchange market ‘UK 2017 General Election’. The market was put out shortly after UK PM Theresa May announced a General Election on June 8th, 2017. May’s reasoning for the announcement was that she needs her own mandate in order to push the controversial Brexit move through. British MPs voted overwhelmingly in favour of May’s call, with 522 agreeing and 13 opposed, easily surpassing the two-thirds majority needed.

Betfair Comments On The 2017 General Election

Naomi Totten, a Betfair spokesperson, commented on the new market: “Conservatives were already odds-on to win most seats prior to Theresa May’s announcement and are now trading with a 93% chance of doing so. A Tory majority win had also been trading at 4/5 early Tuesday morning, implying a 57% chance, until they were backed into a low of 1/8 after the election was called, giving the blue party an implied 89% likelihood of winning an overall majority. Despite the Liberal Democrats still being around a 50/1 shot, a quarter of all bets placed on the Most Seats markets have been on Tim Farron’s party, with punters perhaps expecting their position as the only anti-Brexit party to pay off in some fashion.”

Betfair General Election Markets

As a result, Betfair quickly released their main markets on the election. Betfair will have markets available on all of the 650 constituencies on their exchange. A large range of side markets is also available on the Betfair exchange, including the registered turnout (expected to be between 60 and 65%) and the total seats of each party. The markets already give a good idea of the final outcome with the Conservatives expected to overcome the current Betfair line of 370.5 seats. With Labour’s line set at 177.5, the markets highlight a clear gap between the Tories and the rest. The Conservative are expected to gain over 45% of the vote, based on Betfair’s exchange with main rivals Labour trailing in their wake struggling at around 25%. Of course, bookmakers were surprised at the success of Donald Trump and the Brexit vote underlines a radical change in popular opinion, but it seems little can be done to stop another Tory victory. Nevertheless, the unthinkable has happened before in betting and who knows what this election has in store.