July 17, 2004

Neck and neck

Posted by Chris

Online bookies BlueSquare now have Kerry and Bush neck and neck at 5/6 , which represents a significant shortening of Kerry’s odds. (Compare their odds on the next British general election, which have Labour 2/7 on.)

Posted on July 17, 2004 01:17 PM UTC
Comments

I am disturbed by this. I regard Bush as a disease which needs to be allowed to run its course. Otherwise the body politic will not be purged. If he loses we will still be hearing, for years to come, that tax cuts and pre-emption (of whatever) could have wrought miracles if only they had been pursued unflinchingly by a man with real balls.

Posted by Kevin Donoghue · July 17, 2004 02:10 PM

2 consecutive comments on Yglesias
yesterday

“FDR largely saved capitalism in the US from a socialist future brought by popular discontent related to the failure of the conservative business”

“The New Deal seriously threatened economic liberty, and caused significant human suffering by extending the depression and delaying the rise of rates of economic growth.”

The mood I am in this morning, the fight is never resolved, just moves from “nightmare” to “bearable” and back again.

Donoghue slightly Leninist above? Heighten the contradictions? Nah, do what you can when you can. Kerry/Edwards 04

Posted by bob mcmanus · July 17, 2004 03:21 PM

Too bad the spreads are so large, because there’s no possibility of arbitraging the Iowa market, where Bush is still ahead (bid at 51) to win the popular vote.

The Iowa market itself looks pretty inefficient (absent of arbitrageurs). The sell price on the Dems is 50.5, when I would be very happy to sell at 50 (and then sell at the 51 of the Republican bid, to lock in a grand total of 1). I imagine this has to do with their rules of joining the exchange and paying for one’s trades (check?!), which discourages interested individuals (such as myself!) from joining.

Posted by Andrew Boucher · July 17, 2004 03:52 PM

At Tradesports the prices are 50.3 to 51.0 for a W victory (however, they have a 4c transaction cost).

I think you would have trouble netting much money at all from the IEM, but you’d be welcome to try. It doesn’t look like they have any transaction costs at all.

Posted by Jason · July 17, 2004 06:53 PM

with …?

Posted by Dan · July 18, 2004 02:28 AM

Yes I was just puzzled by that “with” I’d inadvertently left dangling, Dan. I’ll fix it now/

Posted by Chris Bertram · July 18, 2004 10:27 AM

Otherwise the body politic will not be purged.

I used to think this, but now I think that the body politic will never be “purged” by seeing failed policy. Some people see class interests to the exclusion of all else, and some people are just damned fools.

Posted by Kimmitt · July 19, 2004 09:06 AM

Y’all realize that honest-to-goodness, actual moneymaking oddsmakers don’t set odds as direct predictions of events? Right?

Posted by Keith M Ellis · July 19, 2004 04:23 PM

To second Keith, I think this says far more about the pool of customers at TradeSports than it does about the election…

Posted by SIlent E · July 19, 2004 08:47 PM
Followups

This discussion has been closed. Thanks to everyone who contributed.