A little flutter
May. 7th, 2021 08:50 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
adwelly posting in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png){kind=small}
mutualreceptionLest anyone think I’m blowing smoke, I am posting the following image from my Betfair account as of Friday 7th May 8am, about an hour after the market closed.
Betfair is a betting market available in the UK. It allows you to bet on sporting and political events - not against the company itself, but against other gamblers. Betfair takes a cut of your winnings if you win and you can choose to back a wager if you believe it will happen, or lay a wager if you think it will not happen. Laying allows you to profit from events that you predict will not occur - provided of course that they actually don’t occur. In short, Betfair the sort of website your mother warned you about!
This particular bet was about a by-election in Hartlepool, an unexpected election to UK’s Parliament at Westminster because the MP holding the seat had retired early. Hartlepool is a deprived port town in the north east of England and really its most defining characteristic is that it has been a Labour safe seat since 1945. From 92 to 2004 it was held by Peter Mandelson who was the Director of Communications for the New Labour project that gave the world Tony Blair. Peter Mandelson was the third most important individual in the New Labour. It is a town with a huge symbolic status in the Labour movement.
On Thursday May the 6th 2021 Labour lost the seat to a Conservative, increasing the Tory majority in Parliament to a substantial 82. I won my bet at a profit of £17.10, not including Betfair’s cut. That’s the price of a good hardback book or perhaps an upmarket bottle of wine to put that win into international perspective.
It’s certainly possible to argue why this sea change has occurred and I have seen at least three possible explanations in the last hour but none of them really explain why I made this bet last Sunday.
As a matter of fact I was thinking through the impact of the Lunar Eclipse 26th of May 2021, which was recently published by JMG in the usual place. One of the comments he made led me to to believe that the Parliamentary Labour Party (PLP) may well be facing a leadership contest in the second half of the year. If you want to see exactly what he wrote you’ll have to become a Patron or SubscribeStar supporter.
Leadership contests are tricky for any political party because a it will turn inwards and leave the battlefield free for the other side to do what they like more or less. It’s particularly hard for the PLP because the party accepts not mere debate with but actual contempt and rage at their opponents, whether or not those opponents are PLP members or elsewhere. In the aftermath it’s even harder for them to work together to formulate policy and present it to the public.
What, I wondered could trigger such a contest? Well there’s a symbolically important by election coming up and on that very Sunday Sir John Curtice, a famous and effective psephologist was rather gloomy about Labour’s chances given the polling data he was seeing. I then looked at the odds on Betfair. They use digital odds and they sat at 1.57. In the US that would be -175, or 0.57/1 using the traditional British expression. The implied probability is about a 64% chance of a loss by Labour.
My final move was to look up the rules in place for triggering a leadership contest in the PLP. Naturally enough if the current leader resigns, there is a contest, however a contest can also be triggered if 20% of sitting MPs demand it.
So I had three pointers leading me to conclude that Hartlepool would change from Labour to Conservative. Betfair odds, the comments of John Curtice, and finally the fact that such a loss would fit with later events predicted by JMG. I made that bet.
Over the following few days the odds moved in my favour and there were a number of articles and videos put out by Labour supporters about why a Hartlepool loss would not be a disaster, or even why such a loss would be little to do with current leadership. It’s possible to cash out of a Betfair position before the market closes and I could have done so profitably from the day after I made my initial wager - but doing so leaves money on the table. I simply let things take their course and at round about 7am today the results were declared, the market closed and the bets were settled.
I believe there will be a delay at least until the end of May while pressure is applied to Sir Keir Starmer (current leader) to see if he can be persuaded to resign. That timing is based on the effect of the eclipse as described by JMG. If that fails, a conspiracy will form to see if the necessary 20% of MPs can be persuaded to take the risk of triggering a contest - and it will be a risk because if Sir K. wins that contest, the short and even long term careers of the 20% are toast. The contest will be in full swing by summer, and the papers will be full of traded insults; it will be extremely damaging to Labour’s future chances. I await developments with interest, and it’s worth noting that my conclusions regarding a the likelihood of a contest are entirely mine and not based on any further data, charts, or any predictions or augury by anyone else
So why a Betfair wager, particularly on what seems like a relatively risky proposition? In some English speaking cultures common gambling is considered quite scandalous although investments are naturally perfectly OK. I don’t agree with this attitude. In my case I could do it because the money I risked in the first place was not a huge amount and losing it would have no impact on me, or mine, or my peace of mind. Neither would a win. Nor is taking advantage of my views on politics or mundane astrology unfair. I did actually check this with JMG at MM although it was after I’d placed the bet. The point he made was that the knowledge was available to all and easily acquired by those who are interested. I’m not sure I’d use the adjective ‘easy’ but it’s certainly available to all who care to look.
From my perspective the real point of a manoeuvre of this nature is that it focuses your attention rather pointedly on the situation. Place even a few pounds on a bet and you have skin in the game so to speak. You can learn something win or lose, that’s what makes it useful.
Betfair is a betting market available in the UK. It allows you to bet on sporting and political events - not against the company itself, but against other gamblers. Betfair takes a cut of your winnings if you win and you can choose to back a wager if you believe it will happen, or lay a wager if you think it will not happen. Laying allows you to profit from events that you predict will not occur - provided of course that they actually don’t occur. In short, Betfair the sort of website your mother warned you about!
This particular bet was about a by-election in Hartlepool, an unexpected election to UK’s Parliament at Westminster because the MP holding the seat had retired early. Hartlepool is a deprived port town in the north east of England and really its most defining characteristic is that it has been a Labour safe seat since 1945. From 92 to 2004 it was held by Peter Mandelson who was the Director of Communications for the New Labour project that gave the world Tony Blair. Peter Mandelson was the third most important individual in the New Labour. It is a town with a huge symbolic status in the Labour movement.
On Thursday May the 6th 2021 Labour lost the seat to a Conservative, increasing the Tory majority in Parliament to a substantial 82. I won my bet at a profit of £17.10, not including Betfair’s cut. That’s the price of a good hardback book or perhaps an upmarket bottle of wine to put that win into international perspective.
It’s certainly possible to argue why this sea change has occurred and I have seen at least three possible explanations in the last hour but none of them really explain why I made this bet last Sunday.
As a matter of fact I was thinking through the impact of the Lunar Eclipse 26th of May 2021, which was recently published by JMG in the usual place. One of the comments he made led me to to believe that the Parliamentary Labour Party (PLP) may well be facing a leadership contest in the second half of the year. If you want to see exactly what he wrote you’ll have to become a Patron or SubscribeStar supporter.
Leadership contests are tricky for any political party because a it will turn inwards and leave the battlefield free for the other side to do what they like more or less. It’s particularly hard for the PLP because the party accepts not mere debate with but actual contempt and rage at their opponents, whether or not those opponents are PLP members or elsewhere. In the aftermath it’s even harder for them to work together to formulate policy and present it to the public.
What, I wondered could trigger such a contest? Well there’s a symbolically important by election coming up and on that very Sunday Sir John Curtice, a famous and effective psephologist was rather gloomy about Labour’s chances given the polling data he was seeing. I then looked at the odds on Betfair. They use digital odds and they sat at 1.57. In the US that would be -175, or 0.57/1 using the traditional British expression. The implied probability is about a 64% chance of a loss by Labour.
My final move was to look up the rules in place for triggering a leadership contest in the PLP. Naturally enough if the current leader resigns, there is a contest, however a contest can also be triggered if 20% of sitting MPs demand it.
So I had three pointers leading me to conclude that Hartlepool would change from Labour to Conservative. Betfair odds, the comments of John Curtice, and finally the fact that such a loss would fit with later events predicted by JMG. I made that bet.
Over the following few days the odds moved in my favour and there were a number of articles and videos put out by Labour supporters about why a Hartlepool loss would not be a disaster, or even why such a loss would be little to do with current leadership. It’s possible to cash out of a Betfair position before the market closes and I could have done so profitably from the day after I made my initial wager - but doing so leaves money on the table. I simply let things take their course and at round about 7am today the results were declared, the market closed and the bets were settled.
I believe there will be a delay at least until the end of May while pressure is applied to Sir Keir Starmer (current leader) to see if he can be persuaded to resign. That timing is based on the effect of the eclipse as described by JMG. If that fails, a conspiracy will form to see if the necessary 20% of MPs can be persuaded to take the risk of triggering a contest - and it will be a risk because if Sir K. wins that contest, the short and even long term careers of the 20% are toast. The contest will be in full swing by summer, and the papers will be full of traded insults; it will be extremely damaging to Labour’s future chances. I await developments with interest, and it’s worth noting that my conclusions regarding a the likelihood of a contest are entirely mine and not based on any further data, charts, or any predictions or augury by anyone else
So why a Betfair wager, particularly on what seems like a relatively risky proposition? In some English speaking cultures common gambling is considered quite scandalous although investments are naturally perfectly OK. I don’t agree with this attitude. In my case I could do it because the money I risked in the first place was not a huge amount and losing it would have no impact on me, or mine, or my peace of mind. Neither would a win. Nor is taking advantage of my views on politics or mundane astrology unfair. I did actually check this with JMG at MM although it was after I’d placed the bet. The point he made was that the knowledge was available to all and easily acquired by those who are interested. I’m not sure I’d use the adjective ‘easy’ but it’s certainly available to all who care to look.
From my perspective the real point of a manoeuvre of this nature is that it focuses your attention rather pointedly on the situation. Place even a few pounds on a bet and you have skin in the game so to speak. You can learn something win or lose, that’s what makes it useful.
