Corbyn is 'man of the punters', as general election political betting booms

Bookmaker Betfair calculated that the UK general election will attract more than £60m in political betting on its exchange by Friday.

The bookie, which is part of the FTSE 100 Paddy Power Betfair group, said £35m has been bet across all general election markets on its betting exchange so far.

It estimated on Tuesday that punters will go on a late betting frenzy that will see this figure top £60m by the time of the result, making it the third biggest political betting event in the company's history.

The largest political betting event was last year's US presidential election, where Betfair saw behind the £250m taken and £127m for the Brexit referendum.

Meanwhile Paddy Power told DigitalLook it had taken turnover of around £1m and anticipated this would roughly double during the final 72 hours of the election.

"In the first 2 weeks, all the market movements were towards the Conservatives. Not only was Corbyn seen as a liability (and later Diane Abbott). There was also a feeling that Lib Dem vote could split the “anti-tory” feeling. This has now completely reversed, mainly from the announcement of his manifesto which went down very well, particularly with the young," said spokesman Paddy Power.

As well as a man of the people Jeremy Corbyn has been "the man of the punters as well", he added, with the most popular bet being on Corbyn to be Prime Minister after the election.

"The biggest move on Corbyn came after he appeared on the seven-way debate on 31st May. He went in from 6/1 to 11/4 on the back of it. It looked a smart move to suddenly turn up with May sitting out.

Based on the company's analysis of constituency votes, the bookie suggested Labour will be very strong in London and "could possibly even make gains despite the nationwide outlook"; this is echoed to a lesser degree in other urban areas.

Betfair's Katie Baylis painted a slightly different picture on the betting exchange.

“We are seeing a significant number of bets on Labour for most seats, which has seen their odds shorten to 9/1 from 14/1 last week and 22/1 two weeks ago.

"In fact, 60% of bets placed are on Labour in that market, although the vast majority of volume is on the Tories, with a whopping 92% of the money on Theresa May’s party."

“We expect today (Tuesday) to be the biggest day of betting so far and are anticipating around £2m to be staked across various general election markets.”

Odds on the Tories

Betfair has seen almost as many bets on a hung parliament as on a Conservative majority, something that just a few weeks ago was trading as short as 1/14.

Though for the main market, the Tories were 1/10 to win most seats versus Labour a way out at 9/1. Betfair had May's party at 1/4 to win an overall majority, with a 50-74 seat advantage at 5/1, and odds of no overall majority at 9/2.

Earlier this week, Ladbrokes said its odds on Labour had shortened again to 5/1 in the most seats market, though the Tories were well ahead at 1/8.

With Laddies, May remains favourite to be PM at 1/4 by 1 July, however Boris Johnson, who made a late reappearance in the election campaign this week, had continued to be backed by punters, given odds at 25/1 by the firm.

Ladbrokes spokeswoman Jessica Bridge said: "Neither leader performed particularly bad or good during Friday night's final debate, however, bets continue to flood in for Labour and whilst their odds have contracted to their shortest price yet, it still only represents a 17% chance of pulling off a shock victory."

Elsewhere, the feeling on Scottish referendum at Paddy Power was that punter's opinion has swung in favour of the “fail” (at odds of 8/11) when previously the “pass” was 4/7, "as SNP popularity seems to be falling".