This chart is an aggregate of figures from seven betting agencies:
Centrebet, Sportingbet, IASBet, Paddy Power, WBX, LuxBet and BetFair

Sir Roger has chained his statisticians to the desk and they are hard at work on deciphering the latest betting markets on the outcome of the Australian federal election. His chart will be updated regularly.

It is a strongly held assertion that the betting markets, especially in a two-way race, are more accurate in predicting outcomes than opinion polls and a lot more than accurate than most individual predictions. Or to put it another (Wikipedia) way, “In practice, the prices of binary prediction markets have proven to be closely related to actual frequencies of events in the real world.” Election betting may be even more accurate because it is influenced by participants who have inside knowledge or significant professional expertise. You could see this when the betting on 21 August tightened remarkably in the week before the election was called.

On this basis the outcome of the federal election is a shoo-in for Labor – at this stage. You can see from the chart that support for the Mad Party is blowing right out from an already inauspicious start.

“Never tell the truth when a lie will do”?
It is, of course, in the interest of political hacks/journalists/news agencies (“too close to call”) and politicians of both major parties (“very close indeed”) to claim that this election is going to be the closest fought election in the history of the universe. No it’s not. It might become tight but it’s not yet. And you know it.

So stop fucking lying for once.

If you want more sophisticated analysis of the polls and the betting markets Sir Roger recommends you visit Crikey’s Possum Pollytics and the Pollbludger both of whom are excellent psephologists and, importantly, enjoyable to read.

By the way, this has been niggling at Sir Roger for a time:
With all the talk about the dangers of minority governments and hung parliaments, it is a fact that for decades Australia has had hung parliaments at both state and federal levels. Howard and Menzies and the rest all ran minority governments. This is because the Liberal party has rarely had an outright majority and has almost always had to form a coalition with the National (née Country) Party. Only in Queensland, Sir Roger believes (correct him if he is wrong), has a non-Labor party been able to form a majority government. So what’s the anxiety? If you want stable government without the terrors of hung parliaments, vote Labor. If you dare.

[tags]politics, Australian politics, Australian political values, elections, Australian election, federal election, Australia, betting, gambling, betting markets, betting odds, hung parliament, minority government, coalition, Labor, Liberal, National Party, Country Party, Queensland, psephologist, psephology, Crikey, pollbludger, possum pollytics, Howard, Menzies[/tags]