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| Down Under |
| The smart money's on John Howard |
| 2004-09-11 |
| The sports punting firm Centrebet has been taking bets on the outcome of the federal election for a year now, but it was on Thursday night that it saw the biggest surge in new flows of money. "There's been a huge move in the last 24 hours due to what happened in Jakarta," reports the firm's sports betting manager, Gerard Daffy. "As soon as the news got out, we probably took $70,000 to $80,000 in bets for the Coalition." That's an increase of 20 per cent on the total cumulative value of all election bets that the company has taken in the past year. And what of new money on Labor's prospects? "We took half a dozen small - and I mean small - bets for less than $1000 total on Labor. So most punters out there think the election has firmed for the Coalition." The odds on a $1 bet that John Howard would win shortened from $1.45 to $1.30, while the chances of Mark Latham winning blew out from $2.60 to $3.20, according to Centrebet's odds. And the betting system's track record as a predictor of federal election outcomes? Since it began taking such bets in 1993, it has a perfect record of picking winners, says Daffy. SNIP - The rest is mostly Leftist seething while trying to maintain a veneer of 'balance'. FWIIW My reaction was for the first time Mark Latham (Opposition leader) came across as a statesman, whereas normally he comes across as a thug whose IQ is about the same as his collar size (Its funnier in metric). |
| Posted by:phil_b |