Mike Smithson says that one impersonator (that is, someone pretending to be Mike Smithson) published comments on the PoliticalBetting.com thread about the London political elections, giving false exit poll information, in order to influence the betting prices (which I understand, partially, at least

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Starting now, his blog will only publish comments from already approved commenters &#8212-comments from brand-new commenters will have to be manually approved.

We have had this procedure in place on Midas Oracle for some time, now.

BetFair: Which of these parties will have more seats in the US Senate following the 2006 US Senate Elections?

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Republicans: 49%

Democrats: 53.8%

Ex-BBC News Mike Smithson (of the Political Betting blog) wonders whether BetFair will count the two Independent U.S. Senators (Liberman and Sanders) in the Democratic camp.

Lieberman won re-election as the “Connecticut For Lieberman” party candidate – an independent political party he created after losing the 2006 Democratic primary election to Ned Lamont. He has said he will sit as part of the Democratic Senate caucus in the upcoming 110th Congress.

Sanders won yesterday in Vermont as an independent but will caucus with the Democrats and it is said will be counted as a Democrat for the purposes of committee assignments.

The problem that Betfair will have to resolve is that neither ran as a Democrat although they will be attached to the Democrats in the Upper House.

To add to the complication Nick Palmer, MP, posted this on the previous thread at 1.34pm – “I have it in writing from Betfair that they will count the two independents as Democrats. (I asked them a month or two ago before I put a tenner on.) If you have opposite advice in writing, they should be embarrassed!”.

Addendum: From one commenter&#8230-

The question was “Which of these parties will have more seats in the US Senate following the 2006 US Senate Elections?”

The options were Republicans and Democrats. The result is 49-49 with two independents.

It’s a draw- I can’t see how anyone can see otherwise.

Addendum 2: From Yahoo! News (whose data are provided by the Associated Press)&#8230-

Liberman (CT) and Sanders (VT) are counted as Democrats.

Addendum 3: From the Washington Post frontpage&#8230-

Editor&#8217-s Note: Independent members of Congress typically caucus with the Democrats.

Addendum 4: From the New York Times&#8230-

Full Senate Results &#8212- Republican: 49 &#8212- Democratic: 50 – Includes independents who align with the Democratic caucus. &#8212- [CFM’s NOTE: Virginia is still in play at the time of writing.]

Addendum 5: Mike Smithson&#8230-

So punters who are tempted into this market are risking money on how they think Betfair will settle the market.