Scottish referendum biggest-ever political betting event
Bookies hail rise in political betting activity as Betfair matches £9m on final day on the exchange
British bookies have described the Scottish referendum as the biggest political betting event to date, with an estimated £10m being wagered on the outcome across the sector.
This morning’s ‘No’ vote “ widely backed by operators from the outset despite pollsters predicting a tighter outcome “ was just one market which caught the imagination of punters.
Others markets such as turnout percentage and yes/no percentage attracted significant turnover in the build-up to the vote, giving bookies reasons to be cheerful ahead of next year’s UK General Election.
“Political betting is firmly on the rise, although it has been fairly quiet since the US presidential election two years ago,” Aidan Nutbrown, Sporting Index political trading spokesman, said.
“We’ve made the conscious decision to make our political markets more short-term rather than keeping them running for a couple of years and our punters clearly prefer it that way.”
Biggest ever
William Hill said it had taken £3m on the outcome “ more than the last UK General Election and US Presidential Election combined and the equivalent of the amount of money gambled on a high profile televised Premier League match, according to spokesman Graham Sharpe.
One Hills customer walked away with more than £100,000 in winnings after placing a total of £900,000 on the correct result.
Meanwhile Betfair, which paid out early on the ‘No’ result on its fixed-odds sportsbook, said it had matched £19m on the exchange, with £9m of that coming on the final day.
The company said it was the fifth time in a row that prices on its exchange correctly predicted a political outcome, having suggested the ‘No’ campaign had an 80% chance of winning for several months.
In the 2012 US election Betfair recorded its biggest ever political market with some £32.2m traded throughout the campaign compared to £23m in 2008.
“In the end, the money spoke tellingly again, the significant support was all behind NO in the run up to the event and that, rather than opinion polls, is usually a certain indicator,” a Betfair spokesperson said.
Unibet customers shared the same sentiment, again with 80% backing the correct outcome. The company said the odds were guided by “cold hard cash” with potential voters “putting their money where their votes will go”.
Variety of markets
However there was still value for punters as bookies failed to be quite so accurate on some periphery markets.
For example Clackmannanshire in southern Scotland, priced as low as 7/2 to be the area with the highest percentage of ‘Yes’ votes, went in favour of remaining in the union with 54% of residents voting ‘No’.
Nutbrown revealed Sporting Index’s big loser on the night was the percentage turnout market.
“Our opening quote was 78.5-79.5 and it was one-way traffic with punters buying that spread up to the closing 84-85. The make-up was 84.59, a record in UK politics, and our clients definitely had the upper hand in that market,” he said.
Interestingly, Unibet said the referendum attracted significant attention outside of the UK and across Europe, including decent turnover in Norway, Finland, Sweden, Denmark and Belgium in particular.
Anthony Cousins, head of sportsbook “ commercial relations at Unibet, claimed the referendum “set the benchmark” for political betting and predicted that next year’s UK General Election would be a “record breaking event, dwarfing anything we have previously seen”.
“Political betting has become more and more important for Unibet, the US election being one of the highlights in recent years with the turnover reaching levels of a top Premier League match and betting on a variety of offers beyond who will become President, to who will win each state and by what percentage of votes,” he said.