politicalbetting.com

Tory tactical voters hold the key

The more we think about this the more we believe that it will be the Tories who’ll decide how this by election will go. The thinking that they will follow their allegiance is based on the July 15 contests when they kept within 2-3% of their General Election peformance.

But two things are different: the Conservatives have put a lot less into the Hartlepool campaign and Labour’s campaign strategy to make the LD candidate the issue has made the party the undisputed challengers.

If you want to give Blair a bloody nose Labour campaign manager, Fraser Kemp, has told you how.

We guess that the 20% who were Tory at the General Election are more likely to turn out today and that they might react to the highly personalised nature of the campaign.

So what result does Michael Howard want? Our guess is that he’ll see that a Labour humiliation even with a terrible Tory vote is best for his party.

The betting exchange Labour price looks ovevalued at 1/4.

Follow the money to get early clues on which party has won?

The Betfair betting exchange market on Hartlepool will continue throughout the day right upto the point in the early hours of tomorrow morning when the result is declared. If it’s like Brent East, Leicester South and Hodge Hill, the betting exchange market should be a good guide to what’s happening.

As the day wears on the officials will start to get an idea of, first, what the turn-out is likely to be and then whether they are getting their votes out compared with the other parties. This information will spill out and punters will bet on it and prices will move. If there is real solid information then the market will jump with a certainty that is easy to spot.

From 7am. Polls open and as electors go through each station their numbers are taken by tellers and these are biked or phoned back to the HQs where they are keyed into a computer. These form the basis of regular reports so the campaign managers can see where there are weak and strong wards and how their supporters are turning out compared with everybody else. At 7am, too, all unmatched bets on Betfair are cancelled and the screen will look odd until punters come in.

From 9am. The “knock-up” begins. Lists for the hundreds of party activists start to be generated so they knock on doors to get the non-voters to the polling stations.

By 6pm. the party managers start to form pretty clear ideas about how its going and at that stage in previous by-elections clear patterns emerged. If, say, the Lib Dems do stand a chance then there will be clear moved on the market.

10 pm Polls Close. The ballot boxes are taken under police escort to the count. Betting should continue. Party workers do a rough check as they observe the ballot boxes being opened and the counting clerks unfold the papers and put them into batches. All this information will be fed back back and even firmer views of the result become apparent which will be seen in the betting.

By Midnight. Those in the hall will have a firm idea of the result simply by counting the bundles of votes for each party. This will feed out and there’ll be a rush to bet. Prices might be down to 1/10 or 1/20.

It is worth noting that the markets are not infallible. At Leicester South and Hodge Hill the LDs on the night before were odds-on favourites in both seats. At Leicester South they were 2/5 and in Hodge Hill 9/10.

Hartlepool has been totally dominated by that 33% Labour N0P poll lead and not many have been bold enough to bet against such numbers.

The weather forecast for Hartlepool tomorrow is for rain although it should clear by the evening. Quite what effect, if any, this will have on turnout or voting we do not know although the received wisdom is that it does not help Labour.

A bigger effect on turnout, compared with the July contests, might be that it goes dark earlier in late September. Sunset in Hartlepool tomorrow is at 6.42 pm and it’s always harder for the parties to get voters out in the dark than on a light summer evening.

The betting meanwhile has moved slightly away from the Lib Dems overnight but there has been very little activity. It’s 1/4 on Labour and 11/4 Lib Dem with William Hill and 1/3 and 3/1 on the Betfair betting exchange.

The big question will be what happens to the Tory vote. Will there be a tactical switch to the LDs to get Labour out; will Michael Howard’s party lose votes to UKIP instead of the LDs which will help Labour; or will it stay relatively intact?

In the last three by-elections the Lib Dems have found it hard to squeeze the Tory share which has seen drop of only 2-2.5%. If that’s the pattern in Hartlepool it will be good news for Tony Blair.

Another factor will be the impact of Tony Blair’s speech in Brighton yesterday. Whatever there is still a lot to play for. Our view remains – we think that Labour will just do it but we think that the chances of the Lib Dems taking the seat are better than the current odds so its worth a bet.

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Is there betting value on the Lib Dems?

As the Hartepool campaign goes into its final day the big question for political gamblers is whether there is any value in the prices available on the Lib Dems or is the by-election the certainty that the current Labour odds seem to indicate?

All betting is about value. Are the chances of something happening better than the odds available – if they are then you have a value bet.

Prices have moved away from Labour during the day and to the Lib Dems. This was because the 1/6 Labour price that William quoted when it re-opened Hartlepool was not sustainable and prices had to be adjusted. This has been reflected in the Betfair betting exchange.

Both William Hill and Betfair have 11/4 against the Lib Dems and 1/4 and 1/3 on Labour respectively.

We think that Labour will probably just do it but that there’s enough of a chance for the Lib Dems to pull off a victory to make the 11/4 a value bet. The 1/3 on Labour is over-priced even though it has moved out and should be avoided until it’s at about 1/2.

What’s convinced us that there is value in the Lib Dem price is the remarkable revelation in the Guardian that Labour have had to pay people to stuff envelopes.

This might sound trivial but if they can’t find activists to do this most humdrum of jobs how are they going to get people out to the polling stations? Of course there’s been a huge amount of paper going out but getting envelope stuffing volunteers should be an easy task. Finding canvassers to knock on doors or make unsolicitated phone calls is much harder.

That poll two weeks ago putting Labour 33% ahead continues to affect the betting and the word emanating from LD party officials is that they predict that they are very close but they fear a “near miss”. There’s a huge mountain for the Lib Dems to climb.

But the lack of envelope stuffers and the soft betting price makes us look at the Labour campaign in a different light. The LDs are worth the 11/4. BACK.