The UK is due to hold a general election within the next few months. When will it be exactly? See here - /SimonGrayson/uk-general-election-which-month-in-6ab8406103dd
It seems like a foregone conclusion that Labour will get the most seats, and even enough seats to form a majority (more than every other party put together):
/MikeWendling/which-party-will-win-the-most-seats-89bc73fc8893
/NathanpmYoung/will-labour-win-a-majority-in-the-n
Until recently it also seemed like a foregone conclusion that the Tories would come second. But a truly awful few months for them means this might no longer be guaranteed. One Yougov poll this week put them at 19% - if it gets much worse than that then they could be facing a wipeout under FPTP!
We’re predicting there’s a good chance that this could be their worst election for over a century, but could it get even worse than that? /SimonGrayson/will-the-conservative-party-win-few
Which party will win the second most seats?
Feel free to add more parties if you think I’ve missed anyone who’s got a chance!
1,000
3.00LibDems seem underrated now? Latest polling shows it is it pretty close, UK polls have not always been very accurate and the advantage the Cons have due to a horse race dynamic has completely disappeared. It will probably not happen, but I would take Libdems as 1/4, maybe even 1/3.
tbh I'll take it down, I just placed it there because I'm not following the election other than copying other prediction markets, and there's none im aware of on poly about this, so I have no clue, and yesterday i traded on the volatility and this was a sell order but nobody seems capable of taking it
@finn you're a bad influence. Just placed my first ever real money bet! I've never been even slightly tempted before now, but these odds just seem so far off to me.
(To be clear, I'm joking when I say you're a bad influence. Please don't feel bad for the small part you have played in my inevitable slide into becoming a total degen.)
I think this might be the best-value election market right now (70% chance of Conservatives coming second at time of posting this comment). My estimate is probably about 92% but my balance is chronically struggling since the pivot so I can't correct it myself.
Also, as Mike H noted a couple of weeks ago, it's still true that Labour are still pretty good value here, at 0.3% chance of coming second. Compare to, for example: https://manifold.markets/jonjordanc3f0/will-sir-keir-starmer-be-the-uks-ne?r=Rmlvbg
which is at 95% right now. Plenty of arb potential if somebody has the balance. I reckon the chances of Labour coming second are almost 1%. The chances of Starmer being the next PM, correspondingly, are over 99%. (If anything the two should add up to slightly more than 100% because there are scenarios in which Labour are the second largest party but still able to form a government.)
Edit: I just realised that Simon already linked to a market about whether Labour will win a majority, at 94%. Another option to arb with their 0.3% here if desired. We're three weeks from results time. 5% in 3 weeks is probably pretty good return?
I really think Labour being the second largest party is under 1% — it's just that there's little reward for people to bet Labour up past 99% on the other markets when there's 3 weeks until resolution time. The reason this one is so low is simply because the tussle between people betting 'yes' on the Conservatives and Lib Dems coming second has pushed all the other options down to their realistic levels.
I personally think the right price for the Conservatives on this market is roughly 70-75%, though it's plausible my judgement may be clouded.
Yeah, agreed on Labour coming second being <1%. But if any risk-averse people wanted to bet some of those 94s and 95s up to 99, this would be the market to hedge their bets on.
I'm confused what this "has dropped to 1.37" means. The bet I placed on Sky was 1/3, meaning I get back £1.33 for every £1 I spend. So I guess the 1.37 on Betfair corresponds to 1.33 on Sky. But 1.33 is 75%. If Betfair is 73% that means it's better for me than Sky. So correspondingly, I want the "1.37" number to be as large as possible, right? When you said "dropped", did you mean the percentage has dropped (corresponding to the odds going up)?
I wish all these real money betting websites would just use percentages like a sane person.
Oh sorry yeah I meant the implied probability dropped, rather than the decimal odds dropping. You want the decimal odds to be higher for the thing that you think is likely to happen (as it implies that the people you're betting against think it's not so likely).
I do actually quite like decimal odds, as it does communicate the tiny returns you get for the money you lay down when the chances approach, say, >90%.
Also, it's not immediately obvious on Manifold, for instance, that winning a bet you placed at 20% 5xes your money, while one at 30% (a seemingly small difference) only 3.3xes your money. Those 10 percentage points mean a lot more there than they do between 85% and 95%.
I think it's nice to browse probabilities when you want to know what's likely to happen, but nice to use decimal odds to see where you might get a nice return.