politicalbetting.com » Blog Archive » Just when you thought June 23rd couldn’t get any more excit

Second like Remain?

Surely the government would try to prevent a run on the pound, like they did on Black Wednesday.

RobD said:

Surely the government would try to prevent a run on the pound, like they did on Black Wednesday.

Even if the run on the pound might encourage undecided voters to vote Remain..?

RobD said:

Sandpit said:

RobD said:

Surely the government would try to prevent a run on the pound, like they did on Black Wednesday.

Even if the run on the pound might encourage undecided voters to vote Remain..?

Good point, bed for me I think

Edit: Well, why not the other way around?

But for it to make a difference they would need to tell people that we'll know how the vote is going by looking at the value of the pound. I don't know the election rules but I'd imagine news organisations will need to be very careful about what they report.

In fact, is it possible to cease trading on the pound for 24 hours?

SandyRentool said:

Can someone explain how this wouldn't be insider trading?

Because it's information anyone can get if they are willing to do some research. It's not privileged information. Totally fine.

PlatoSaid said:

Remain are claiming on Sky that a point based system would put up immigration.

Someone's been on the sauce early.

Farcical proposition. Having been through a points based system I know that the passing score is adjusted every month to keep the numbers getting through at your target level

RobD said:

asjohnstone said:

SandyRentool said:

Can someone explain how this wouldn't be insider trading?

Because it's information anyone can get if they are willing to do some research. It's not privileged information. Totally fine.

Yeah, no one is stopping anyone else from doing their own polls and acting accordingly.

On the point of suspending trading in Sterling. I don't think that's possible? At least not totally.

Yes, we've all got £500k to spend on a poll before we decide whether to get our holiday money.

Farce.

SandyRentool said:

RobD said:

asjohnstone said:

SandyRentool said:

Can someone explain how this wouldn't be insider trading?

Because it's information anyone can get if they are willing to do some research. It's not privileged information. Totally fine.

Yeah, no one is stopping anyone else from doing their own polls and acting accordingly.

On the point of suspending trading in Sterling. I don't think that's possible? At least not totally.

Yes, we've all got £500k to spend on a poll before we decide whether to get our holiday money.

Farce.

Given that it is illegal to publish the information before 10PM, if you use the information in a way that will cause published markets to move indicating to the public the findings, and potentially influencing voters, could that be construed by a court as indirectly publishing?

Certainly anyone reporting any such move in the markets is going to have to be really careful how they make such reports. Any hints in the report that the shift is down to the possible election result could get them in hot water.

Do you hate foreigners enough to Vote Leave?

Paul_Bedfordshire said:

asjohnstone said:

The next polls are key, if they show a trend towards leave, the narrative changes.

I wonder if leave is concerned about peaking too early and giving the establishment time to cook up a Scottish style "Vow" charade?

I'd imagine they'd look to just get over the line, late.

But the polls have not moved. All that has happened is that the telephone polls have come into line with the online polls.

ICM did an online poll as well as a phone poll yesterday. They, less widely reported, did an online poll two weeks ago at the same time as their previous phone poll. The online poll two weeks ago was 52/48 leave - exactly the same as yesterdays. It is only the phone polls that have moved dramatically.

This isn't a shift, this is a dawning realisation of reality.

Or not.

PlatoSaid said:

Indigo said:

logical_song said:

1. The pound has dropped already based on a poll showing Brexit ahead. To say that nothing will happen if the country really does vote for Brexit must be wrong:
"The pound dropped after a new poll showed a jump in support for the campaign to take Britain out of the European Union, spooking some investors who had thought that the result was a foregone conclusion.
Sterling fell against all of its 16 major peers as ICM opinion polls released Tuesday by the Guardian showed a lead for the ‘Leave’ camp. "

People forgetting that correlation does not equal causality. The pound dropped, but by no more than a typical amount that happens several times a week in one direction or the other. The poll results were announced as better for leave (in keeping with several recent polls). The two might be related at some level between 0 and 100%.

logical_song said:

2. As someone who worked at the time on preventing Y2K problems, I can tell you that the reason nothing happened is that many companies prepared for it and worked on it for eighteen months or so before the end of 1999.

Damn right! I worked on several systems, one of which with national although not critical significance, that would have definitely failed had we not made the required changes.

I worked for a large telecoms firm back then and it's whole billing system was non-compliant [it was based on 01/01/01]. The proprietary software was crap, but there was no time or money to replace the whole thing. So we paid through the nose to add two more digits.

You just set yourself up for another big cost in the year 9999

Seconds since epoch is my favourite time measuring unit

PlatoSaid said:

I'd really like to understand what ICM have done to bring their phone/online polls into general alignment.

After all the herding that went on last May, I'm very sceptical - no matter how honest the pollsters' intentions to fix the discrepancy.

It's a funny thing - it's uplifting to see Leave with any poll lead, but I almost wish Remain were. It's the hope that kills me.

I feel the same so kind of know what you mean. Until now LEAVE was the outsider, hoping to sneak up on the rails in racing parlance. Now it feels like they are there to be shot at and there will be no no limit to the number of dirty tricks applied.

peter_from_putney said:

Sandpit said:

Someone's already betting big on the result, Betfair matched over £750,000 yesterday on the referendum Remain/Leave market, there's now more than £17m matched in total, three weeks before the event.

These amounts might seem huge, but in fact they are no greater than those matched on an average televised Premier League football match in the couple of days leading up to the game and more especially during the game itself.
It's in the nature of exchange betting that the amounts wagered are large, since to a very substantial extent the same bettors are placing bets on both sides of the equation, i.e. back and lay, seeking to secure tiny margins of profit by doing so. In this way, an individual punter might have matched bets of say £1000 or more on a game, whilst at any one time his maximum exposure never exceeds say £100. The amounts placed with bookmakers are therefore likely to be very much smaller by comparison.

Don't disagree, but it's a lot of money at stake so far out. I don't bet on football but have heard similar numbers mentioned for a big match. There was a post here from iSam last year in which he said that his syndicate usually has around £75k in play on the football over a weekend. Most cricket Tests involving England are around £12-15m on Betfair

£50 yesterday was mine, and £150 of the £17m - if there were 100 PB posters all putting £50 on that's still only £5,000. I guess this shows that political betting is now very mainstream.

peter_from_putney said:

PlatoSaid said:

I'd really like to understand what ICM have done to bring their phone/online polls into general alignment.

After all the herding that went on last May, I'm very sceptical - no matter how honest the pollsters' intentions to fix the discrepancy.

It's a funny thing - it's uplifting to see Leave with any poll lead, but I almost wish Remain were. It's the hope that kills me.

I feel the same so kind of know what you mean. Until now LEAVE was the outsider, hoping to sneak up on the rails in racing parlance. Now it feels like they are there to be shot at and there will be no no limit to the number of dirty tricks applied.

Much like me trying to snipe a first from you

Indigo said:

RobD said:

PlatoSaid said:

Indigo said:

logical_song said:

1. The pound has dropped already based on a poll showing Brexit ahead. To say that nothing will happen if the country really does vote for Brexit must be wrong:
"The pound dropped after a new poll showed a jump in support for the campaign to take Britain out of the European Union, spooking some investors who had thought that the result was a foregone conclusion.
Sterling fell against all of its 16 major peers as ICM opinion polls released Tuesday by the Guardian showed a lead for the ‘Leave’ camp. "

People forgetting that correlation does not equal causality. The pound dropped, but by no more than a typical amount that happens several times a week in one direction or the other. The poll results were announced as better for leave (in keeping with several recent polls). The two might be related at some level between 0 and 100%.

logical_song said:

2. As someone who worked at the time on preventing Y2K problems, I can tell you that the reason nothing happened is that many companies prepared for it and worked on it for eighteen months or so before the end of 1999.

Damn right! I worked on several systems, one of which with national although not critical significance, that would have definitely failed had we not made the required changes.

I worked for a large telecoms firm back then and it's whole billing system was non-compliant [it was based on 01/01/01]. The proprietary software was crap, but there was no time or money to replace the whole thing. So we paid through the nose to add two more digits.

You just set yourself up for another big cost in the year 9999

Seconds since epoch is my favourite time measuring unit

Oh yes, it will probably all happen again around 03:14:07 UTC on 19 January 2038

Hah, yes! Why not define it as a 64bit number in the first place?

RobD said:

PlatoSaid said:

Indigo said:

logical_song said:

1. The pound has dropped already based on a poll showing Brexit ahead. To say that nothing will happen if the country really does vote for Brexit must be wrong:
"The pound dropped after a new poll showed a jump in support for the campaign to take Britain out of the European Union, spooking some investors who had thought that the result was a foregone conclusion.
Sterling fell against all of its 16 major peers as ICM opinion polls released Tuesday by the Guardian showed a lead for the ‘Leave’ camp. "

People forgetting that correlation does not equal causality. The pound dropped, but by no more than a typical amount that happens several times a week in one direction or the other. The poll results were announced as better for leave (in keeping with several recent polls). The two might be related at some level between 0 and 100%.

logical_song said:

2. As someone who worked at the time on preventing Y2K problems, I can tell you that the reason nothing happened is that many companies prepared for it and worked on it for eighteen months or so before the end of 1999.

Damn right! I worked on several systems, one of which with national although not critical significance, that would have definitely failed had we not made the required changes.

I worked for a large telecoms firm back then and it's whole billing system was non-compliant [it was based on 01/01/01]. The proprietary software was crap, but there was no time or money to replace the whole thing. So we paid through the nose to add two more digits.

You just set yourself up for another big cost in the year 9999

Seconds since epoch is my favourite time measuring unit

We won't have to wait until 9999, only have to wait until 2038 when UNIX Time rolls over. This is your favourite 'seconds since epoch', and it will overflow a 32bit integer on Jan 19 of that year.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Year_2038_problem

Indigo said:

RobD said:

Indigo said:

RobD said:

Scott_P said:

Do you hate foreigners enough to Vote Leave?

Come on Scott, it isn't about hating foreigners.

Honestly! I am surprised Scott manages to keep this level of output up with one hand seeming permanently otherwise engaged. Quite a lot of foreigners are voting for leave as well... my foreign wife is, and most of her foreign friends are. In short, he's talking bollocks.

See
http://www.express.co.uk/news/uk/653057/Black-Asian-voters-key-winning-Brexit-EU-referendum

Speaking as somewhat of a foreigner myself (now away for four years, but maybe back soon?), I do feel a bit guilty having a right to vote even though I am not living in the UK. Saying that, I'm actually going to be back for the big day, so I'll cast my ballot in person. Still undecided, but leaning Leave (slightly).

I have been away for 6 years and sadly won't be voting. I looked at setting up a proxy vote with my wife who is in the UK, but when I looked at the website as soon as it became available for the EU Ref it said they needed to send me a form to sign to authorise it... and it takes two months or more for the post to reach me where I am at the moment, so pointless.

You should have scanned your form, sent the PDF to your wife, and got her to mail it to them. There's probably still time.

RobD said:

Indigo said:

RobD said:

PlatoSaid said:

Indigo said:

logical_song said:

1. The pound has dropped already based on a poll showing Brexit ahead. To say that nothing will happen if the country really does vote for Brexit must be wrong:
"The pound dropped after a new poll showed a jump in support for the campaign to take Britain out of the European Union, spooking some investors who had thought that the result was a foregone conclusion.
Sterling fell against all of its 16 major peers as ICM opinion polls released Tuesday by the Guardian showed a lead for the ‘Leave’ camp. "

People forgetting that correlation does not equal causality. The pound dropped, but by no more than a typical amount that happens several times a week in one direction or the other. The poll results were announced as better for leave (in keeping with several recent polls). The two might be related at some level between 0 and 100%.

logical_song said:

2. As someone who worked at the time on preventing Y2K problems, I can tell you that the reason nothing happened is that many companies prepared for it and worked on it for eighteen months or so before the end of 1999.

Damn right! I worked on several systems, one of which with national although not critical significance, that would have definitely failed had we not made the required changes.

I worked for a large telecoms firm back then and it's whole billing system was non-compliant [it was based on 01/01/01]. The proprietary software was crap, but there was no time or money to replace the whole thing. So we paid through the nose to add two more digits.

You just set yourself up for another big cost in the year 9999

Seconds since epoch is my favourite time measuring unit

Oh yes, it will probably all happen again around 03:14:07 UTC on 19 January 2038

Hah, yes! Why not define it as a 64bit number in the first place?

Same reason everyone went with a two-digit year - really expensive memory and storage in the early days of computing...

The referendum has finally reached it's inevitable equation, economy v immigrants.

So far on this thread 2 people have expressed outrage when I point this out

Neither of them live here.

Scott_P said:

Do you hate foreigners enough to Vote Leave?

Poor old Scott, didn't get the memo du jour - that Leave will actually push UP immigration!

Sometimes, you just have to feel sorry for pb's resident Dervish.

Scott_P said:

The referendum has finally reached it's inevitable equation, economy v immigrants.

So far on this thread 2 people have expressed outrage when I point this out

Neither of them live here.

Hm, not sure I expressed outrage?

We are now at the stage where we just have to hope that the Leave side is right about the economic consequences of Brexit. As I noted last night, the parallels with the Scottish independence referendum are really uncanny in so many ways.

Throughout that campaign the Yes side rubbished every No warning and talked about Project Fear. Independence, they said, would set Scotland free to plot a path to prosperity that Westminster - which took far more from Scotland than it gave back - would never deliver. When No said that the Scottish economy was too reliant on oil revenues this was dismissed. Oil is just a bonus, the Yes side said; and, in any case, we are heading towards a new boom. The experts are talking Scotland down, they are never right, this is just the establishment seeking to protect itself and its vested interests.

Turns out, though, that the establishment was right. That the experts did know what they were talking about. That the data and the stats the Yes side produced were completely wrong. That all the assurances they gave and the claims they made were false. It turns out that if Scotland had voted for independence it would now be embroiled in financial and economic catastrophe. It turns out that Yes was completely and utterly wrong.

Let us hope that Leave aren't wrong. Because if they are, it is going to get very, very unpleasant for a great many of this country's people very quickly.

Indigo said:

RobD said:

Indigo said:

RobD said:

Scott_P said:

Do you hate foreigners enough to Vote Leave?

Come on Scott, it isn't about hating foreigners.

Honestly! I am surprised Scott manages to keep this level of output up with one hand seeming permanently otherwise engaged. Quite a lot of foreigners are voting for leave as well... my foreign wife is, and most of her foreign friends are. In short, he's talking bollocks.

See
http://www.express.co.uk/news/uk/653057/Black-Asian-voters-key-winning-Brexit-EU-referendum

Speaking as somewhat of a foreigner myself (now away for four years, but maybe back soon?), I do feel a bit guilty having a right to vote even though I am not living in the UK. Saying that, I'm actually going to be back for the big day, so I'll cast my ballot in person. Still undecided, but leaning Leave (slightly).

I have been away for 6 years and sadly won't be voting. I looked at setting up a proxy vote with my wife who is in the UK, but when I looked at the website as soon as it became available for the EU Ref it said they needed to send me a form to sign to authorise it... and it takes two months or more for the post to reach me where I am at the moment, so pointless.

DHL and UPS can get a document anywhere in the world in 48 hours. I signed up last year for a postal vote and had a courier pick up the forms and send them back.

Edit: check the electoral commission website, they say you can register online with NI number and passport number until June 7th.
https://www.gov.uk/register-to-vote

https://twitter.com/neiledwardlovat/status/737886243967623172

Charles said:

Daily FX trading is about $5.3 trillion. Approximately 13% of that relates to GBP or c. $700 billion.

It's unlikely that any hedgie is going to make a 'bet the farm' investment on the basis of an exit poll, so at most you may get a few billion staked.

It's not going to cause a run on the pound - rumours might, but that would be purely unsubstantiated and not related to the exit polls at all

Well that adds a little perspective to the discussion. Really, c30% of UK annual GDP traded in Sterling every day.

Indigo said:

Sandpit said:

Indigo said:

RobD said:

Indigo said:

RobD said:

Scott_P said:

Do you hate foreigners enough to Vote Leave?

Come on Scott, it isn't about hating foreigners.

Honestly! I am surprised Scott manages to keep this level of output up with one hand seeming permanently otherwise engaged. Quite a lot of foreigners are voting for leave as well... my foreign wife is, and most of her foreign friends are. In short, he's talking bollocks.

See
http://www.express.co.uk/news/uk/653057/Black-Asian-voters-key-winning-Brexit-EU-referendum

Speaking as somewhat of a foreigner myself (now away for four years, but maybe back soon?), I do feel a bit guilty having a right to vote even though I am not living in the UK. Saying that, I'm actually going to be back for the big day, so I'll cast my ballot in person. Still undecided, but leaning Leave (slightly).

I have been away for 6 years and sadly won't be voting. I looked at setting up a proxy vote with my wife who is in the UK, but when I looked at the website as soon as it became available for the EU Ref it said they needed to send me a form to sign to authorise it... and it takes two months or more for the post to reach me where I am at the moment, so pointless.

DHL and UPS can get a document anywhere in the world in 48 hours. I signed up last year for a postal vote and had a courier pick up the forms and send them back.

Edit: check the electoral commission website, they say you can register online with NI number and passport number until June 7th.
https://www.gov.uk/register-to-vote

Interesting. The way I read the site they were going to send me a document to sign, and they would use standard 1st class which takes two months or more to get to me. I know this because I received a letter from HMG last week that was posted in March!

If they need to send a letter, have them post it to your wife or someone in the UK, then have the courier pick it up from there

Indigo said:

I have been away for 6 years and sadly won't be voting. I looked at setting up a proxy vote with my wife who is in the UK, but when I looked at the website as soon as it became available for the EU Ref it said they needed to send me a form to sign to authorise it... and it takes two months or more for the post to reach me where I am at the moment, so pointless.

do I remember right that you are in the Philippines? Are there vigilante squads forming getting ready to take the criminals out?

PlatoSaid said:

Oh dear.

Liz Kershaw on Sky paper review really articulating the emotional reaction/outrage at illegal immigrants. She lives in Dymchurch and has had gangs of young Albanian men climbing over her garden wall en route from the beach.

Now, she's just mentioned Chipping Cameron and how it's not a problem for him and his friends.

If I were in Number 10, I'd be holding my head in my heads.

How will Brexit prevent illegal Albanian immigrants entering the country?

blackburn63 said:

beyond crying RAAAACCCCIIIISSSSSTTTT he has nothing else to contribute

Beyond RAAAAACCCIIIISSSSSMMMMM the Leave campaign has nothing else to contribute

Do you hate foreigners enough to Vote Leave?

peter_from_putney said:

I certainly can't get close to Tyson's claim a couple of days ago that he would find it difficult/impossible to have a Tory as a friend ..... remarkable!
In fact I have a number of Labour-supporting friends, but not as many as Her Indoors, who, from her earlier days knows a number of people living in Red in Tooth and Claw Blackburn.
Although clearly not nearly a large enough sample to be in any way representative, she reports that virtually every one, ranging in age from being in their late twenties through to their seventies, intends to vote LEAVE.
It was on receiving this intelligence a few days ago, that I really started to believe that the betting markets had it all wrong.

Please get her indoors to send her friends to the Blackburn Museum.

There's a big redevelopment of the town centre being planned & I'm trying to get the museum to be a key part of the story. Fingers crossed we are going to get there, but every little counts & they have a fantastic collection!

SouthamObserver said:

We are now at the stage where we just have to hope that the Leave side is right about the economic consequences of Brexit. As I noted last night, the parallels with the Scottish independence referendum are really uncanny in so many ways.

Throughout that campaign the Yes side rubbished every No warning and talked about Project Fear. Independence, they said, would set Scotland free to plot a path to prosperity that Westminster - which took far more from Scotland than it gave back - would never deliver. When No said that the Scottish economy was too reliant on oil revenues this was dismissed. Oil is just a bonus, the Yes side said; and, in any case, we are heading towards a new boom. The experts are talking Scotland down, they are never right, this is just the establishment seeking to protect itself and its vested interests.

Turns out, though, that the establishment was right. That the experts did know what they were talking about. That the data and the stats the Yes side produced were completely wrong. That all the assurances they gave and the claims they made were false. It turns out that if Scotland had voted for independence it would now be embroiled in financial and economic catastrophe. It turns out that Yes was completely and utterly wrong.

Let us hope that Leave aren't wrong. Because if they are, it is going to get very, very unpleasant for a great many of this country's people very quickly.

You didn't have to be in with a shot at the Nobel Prize for Economics to know that the YES campaign was irresponsibly optimistic.

Equally, the Remainer Establishment's assessment of a "There be dragons!" post-Brexit apocalyptic landscape is irresponsibly pessimistic. They chuck a whole bucket of "if it might go wrong, it will go wrong" over there assessments, without any possible provision for the inescapable truth - that for hundreds of years, we as a sovereign nation have been pretty damned good at this business malarkey..

Of course, if the Leave Tories had not backed major cuts to the Royal Navy and the coastguard we may now find it easier to protect our coastline.

Charles said:

Sandpit said:

Charles said:

Daily FX trading is about $5.3 trillion. Approximately 13% of that relates to GBP or c. $700 billion.

It's unlikely that any hedgie is going to make a 'bet the farm' investment on the basis of an exit poll, so at most you may get a few billion staked.

It's not going to cause a run on the pound - rumours might, but that would be purely unsubstantiated and not related to the exit polls at all

Well that adds a little perspective to the discussion. Really, c30% of UK annual GDP traded in Sterling every day.

Well we have to make a living, and our percentage is really very small

One only needs a very small percentage of a huge number...

MarqueeMark said:

for hundreds of years, we as a sovereign nation have been pretty damned good at this business malarkey..

...but we never did it by walking away from our largest market.

SO : "Let us hope that Leave aren't wrong. Because if they are, it is going to get very, very unpleasant for a great many of this country's people very quickly."

I doubt that very much. Should LEAVE win, that certainly wouldn't result in the UK leaving the EU any time soon - in fact I don't see it happening in less than 4-5 years minimum.
Furthermore, I would dare to suggest that on the balance of probabilities, it would still be more likely that not we would remain a member of the EU for the foreseeable future, it's simply in the nature of things.
I fully expect the betting markets to reflect this prospect before very long.

SandyRentool said:

Will Straw: "Australia, who have a points-based immigration system, have twice as many migrants per head as the UK."

Are you a muppet or what? They could just as easily have half the level - they have control.

They could. But a points based system would be a really bad way of controlling it. In the words of the anti-immigration Migration Watch, "totally unsuitable for the UK":

http://www.migrationwatchuk.org/press-release/398

MarqueeMark said:

SouthamObserver said:

We are now at the stage where we just have to hope that the Leave side is right about the economic consequences of Brexit. As I noted last night, the parallels with the Scottish independence referendum are really uncanny in so many ways.

Throughout that campaign the Yes side rubbished every No warning and talked about Project rests.

Turns out, though, that the establishment was right. That the experts did know what they utterly wrong.

Let us hope that Leave aren't wrong. Because if they are, it is going to get very, very unpleasant for a great many of this country's people very quickly.

You didn't have to be in with a shot at the Nobel Prize for Economics to know that the YES campaign was irresponsibly optimistic.

Equally, the Remainer Establishment's assessment of a "There be dragons!" post-Brexit apocalyptic landscape is irresponsibly pessimistic. They chuck a whole bucket of "if it might go wrong, it will go wrong" over there assessments, without any possible provision for the inescapable truth - that for hundreds of years, we as a sovereign nation have been pretty damned good at this business malarkey..

Yes, as I say we had better hope that Leave is right about this and that all the economists and the global institutions that are warning against pulling out of the EU are wrong. If they are not, if it turns out that they are right, as they were right about the dangers that an independent Scotland might face, then a lot of people are going to face a lot of hardship for a sustained period of time.

Many of us on PB are fortunate enough to be in a position where we are protected against the possible economic downsides of Brexit; we are well paid with good jobs, or we no longer work, or we do not live in the UK. Some of us, most notably the lawyers, will actually do extremely well from it. Most of our fellow citizens, on the other hand, are in more exposed positions. Leave just has to be right if they are not going to face a very challenging future.

There is nothing in your answer that reassures me on that front. I would, for example, dispute that for the last one hundred years or so we have been "pretty damned good at this business malarkey". From where I sit, we have been pretty damned bad at it - poor productivity, low investment in R&D, relatively poor exports, and so on. That's one of the reasons why we wanted to join the EEC, as was, in the first place.

Sandpit said:

peter_from_putney said:

Sandpit said:

Someone's already betting big on the result, Betfair matched over £750,000 yesterday on the referendum Remain/Leave market, there's now more than £17m matched in total, three weeks before the event.

These amounts might seem huge, but in fact they are no greater than those matched on an average televised Premier League football match in the couple of days leading up to the game and more especially during the game itself.
It's in the nature of exchange betting that the amounts wagered are large, since to a very substantial extent the same bettors are placing bets on both sides of the equation, i.e. back and lay, seeking to secure tiny margins of profit by doing so. In this way, an individual punter might have matched bets of say £1000 or more on a game, whilst at any one time his maximum exposure never exceeds say £100. The amounts placed with bookmakers are therefore likely to be very much smaller by comparison.

Don't disagree, but it's a lot of money at stake so far out. I don't bet on football but have heard similar numbers mentioned for a big match. There was a post here from iSam last year in which he said that his syndicate usually has around £75k in play on the football over a weekend. Most cricket Tests involving England are around £12-15m on Betfair

£50 yesterday was mine, and £150 of the £17m - if there were 100 PB posters all putting £50 on that's still only £5,000. I guess this shows that political betting is now very mainstream.

If so, that's very much down to Mike Smithson, his Lieutenants and ..... us!

blackburn63 said:

PlatoSaid said:

MarqueeMark said:

Scott_P said:

Do you hate foreigners enough to Vote Leave?

Poor old Scott, didn't get the memo du jour - that Leave will actually push UP immigration!

Sometimes, you just have to feel sorry for pb's resident Dervish.

I've just heard the claim again - it's Will Straw. He's spouting some really strange things. How stupid does he think we all are? My instant reaction was Don't Be Silly.

One especially pleasing outcome of Leave would be seeing Daddy's boys such as Straw and Kinnock exposed as what they are.

This is why hereditary peerages aren't a bad thing.