Mike Smithson says that, in 2006, betting on the next Italian Prime Minister was far more popular than on the US mid-term elections:
Just compare the betting interest in last year’s major events. For the biggest elections by far in terms of global importance were the US midterms when the ability of President George W. Bush to govern was severely limited when his party, the Republicans, lost control of Congress and the Senate.
Yet when it came to the betting it was the Romano Prodi versus Silvano Berlusconi battle for the Italian presidency that brought the punters in with more than twice as much being wagered. This was despite the fact that the US election was covered much more widely by the UK media and, of course, there was the advantage that the main players spoke English.
Mike Smithson predicts that betting on the next French president will be popular —one of the reasons being that a woman is the favorite.
Only $41,413 has been matched at BetFair, so far.
- Nicolas Sarkozy (the man – Republican): 45.9%
- Segolene Royal (the woman – Socialist): 54.1%
Play-money NewsFutures agrees but seems messy:
- Nicolas Sarkozy (the man – Republican): 51%
- Segolene Royale (the woman – Socialist): the chart says 53% but the top of the page says 51%.
French version of NewsFutures.
TradeSports has some French presidency prediction markets.
Previous blog post: BetFair and TradeSports don’t compute French politics.
My bet: Segolene Royal (the woman – Socialist) is the darling of the media, as of today. But Nicolas Sarkozy (the man – Republican) will do well in the TV debate(s). So I would wait and see.
