The UK election selection
British betting operators leave no stone unturned in their quest for new events to make books on - and Britain's forthcoming general election had led to a range of new markets and products. Here are some of our favourites.
UK BETTING operators leave no stone unturned in their quest for new events to make books on, with markets available on everything from the Christmas number one single to the results of TV’s X Factor.
It should come as no surprise, then, that there are a range of new products surrounding Britain’s forthcoming general election.
Among them is the latter day home of new Ladbrokes chief executive Richard Glynn, spread betting firm Sporting Index, which today launched Election 2010 Zone, a mini-site dedicated to election-focused markets.
Also included is software provider Barcrest Group, which is supplying Ladbrokes and other clients with Poll Position, a game featuring caricatures of the main party leaders and prize amounts relative to each party’s popularity as per recent opinion polls; and Betfair, which launched a new site with polling and research company ComRes giving the most up-to-date predictions on the race.
Betfair’s site, ElectionPredict.com, provides the latest polling data and Betfair market information across political topics ranging from the overall composition of the House of Commons and the likelihood of a hung Parliament down to individual constituency results.
It will also offer tools for news portals, websites and bloggers to use on their own sites, while individual commentators will be able to customise their own versions of the tools to provide a bespoke reference for users.
And the punters are lapping it up, according to Betfair, which now offers more than 1,300 election markets and is “seeing unprecedented demand for politics betting ahead of the upcoming general election, with our market operations team being overwhelmed by the volume of requests for specific bets”, according to spokesman Mike Robb.
Depressingly, Robb also crows that “a number of customers have called us asking whether or not the betting markets will be open through polling day, saying that they would rather stay in and bet on the election than head out and vote” “ which might be good for Betfair, but is less good for Britain.
Lastly, no-one should forget the original political betting site, PoliticalBetting.Com, founded in March 2004 by former BBC journalist Mike Smithson to provide a discussion platform and an information service for political gamblers.
And which, in a coup for the British bookmaker, is currently sponsored by Ladbrokes…
For more on the UK election, see our UK General Election: which party will work for egaming? feature in the April issue of eGaming Review.