NT Election betting market
The Centrebet odds this mornings were $5.00 for the Country Liberal Party and $1.14 for Labor. Which suggests the punters give Labor an 81 per cent chance of winning to the CLP’s 19 per cent chance. However, according to Centrebet …
ELECTIONS
by Gerard Daffy - June 16, 2005The Northern Territory will be held this Saturday and although the turnover is approaching $150,000 that figure has been bolstered by a couple of big bets from interstate.
So far the biggest bets for the Labor Party to retain government have been $50,000 and $20,000 from Queensland and New South Wales respectively. We aren’t sure whether those two clients are political devotees who know are things are in the NT or just backing Labor because they already hold power.
The interesting aspect is that of the $25,000 placed on the CLP to date (at 3.25 and 4.00) nearly all has come from within the NT. So to put that in perspective we would have to say that there isn’t much between the two parties and it could go either way.
Daffy appears to be suggesting the interstate punters have more dollars than sense. (Or being NT based, this may be an attempt at political neutrality). Whatever, I still think we will see a swing to Labor at tomorrow’s election.
My NT election betting market graphs are here.
Update Saturday 18/6 at 7am EST: $6.00 for the Country Liberal Party and $1.08 for Labor. This suggests the punters now give Labor an 85 per cent chance of winning to the CLP’s 15 per cent chance.
I sometimes wonder whether these last minute plunges, which seem to happen with every election, are largely speculative. Consequently, the closing price is probably an overestimate of the probability of winning for the favourite. The NT is a difficult electorate to predict. There is little opinion polling. The electorates are very small. The popularity of local candidates is more important in the NT than in other states. There are significant population shifts between elections. And so on.
So while I have predicted a Labor win in the order of 16 to 18 seats, there is a lot of unresolved uncertainty. I think the chance of a CLP win is higher than just 15 per cent. It may be as high as 25 per cent.