Twist after betting plunge rocks election
Australia’s betting giants are convinced Anthony Albanese is going to romp his way to victory in the election - but history tells a very different story.
Bookies are convinced Anthony Albanese is a shoo-in to be Australia’s next Prime Minister – but history tells us that punters don’t always have it right.
Betting giant Sportsbet has Labor to form government in Saturday’s election at unbackable odds of $1.06 with the Coalition priced at $10.50.
TAB agreed, telling news.com.au that “punters appear to have made up their mind” as to who should be our next leader with “very little confidence that the Coalition can win”.
Monster betting plunges this week have sent Dutton’s odds sinking from $4.50 on Tuesday to $7 on Wednesday and now $10.50 on the eve of the election.
But you only have to look back two elections to see proof that bookies don’t always get it right.
In 2019, Scott Morrison stunned pundits and defied pre-poll projections to secure a “miracle” win that allowed him to form an unlikely majority Coalition government.
Bookies had Opposition Leader Bill Shorten at odds of $1.16 to win.
Adding salt to the wound, Sportsbet lost at least $5.2 million after paying out Shorten backers two days before Australians went to the polls.
“We paid out $1.3 million early to punters who backed Labor early, but on top of that we obviously have a massive payout on the Coalition which will be at least three times that figure,” Sportsbet spokesman Richard Hummerston told Fairfax at the time.
“Seventy per cent of the cash staked before the early payout had come for Labor, our punters had called the election early. We thought we’d simply give them their cash early.”
Bookies haven’t had much luck predicting US elections either.
During Donald Trump’s first election win in 2016, Aussie bookies were caught with their pants down after Hillary Clinton lost despite being clear favourite.
Sportsbet ($11 million), TAB ($4 million) and William Hill ($4 million) were all stung by Aussie punters who backed Trump at long odds to win.
There is plenty of debate as to which of the two predictors – betting markets or opinion polls – are more authoritative and accurate.
Elon Musk declared betting markets “more accurate than polls, as actual money is on the line” when the odds for Trump edged ahead of Kamala Harris for bookies during the 2024 election.
NPR’s editor Keith Romer said betting markets had a fairly accurate history of tipping US elections, going back before scientific political polls.
“Of the 15 presidential elections between 1884 and 1940, the betting market correctly calls the race in 11,” Romer told Planet Money last year.
“It’s too close to call in three. And they only get one wrong.”
In his 2015 book The Luck of Politics, then-academic and current sitting Labor MP, Dr Andrew Leigh, said that punters can hold their own against opinion polls.
“Every time, betting markets have been found to perform at least as well, and usually better than, the polls,” he wrote.
But others argue betting markets are too closely tied to wagers and therefore open to manipulation.
“When you don’t have limits, then it is the deep pockets which moves the prices,” Thomas Gruca, a marketing professor at the University of Iowa, told the BBC.
“Your opinion is weighted by the size of your cheque book.”
Originally published as Twist after betting plunge rocks election
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