New bets, SC and NV predictions


Forgive the lateness of these updates – I am in the UK on family business before flying back to Las Vegas tomorrow.

Hopefully I’ll be joining a fellow British political gambler for an all-night session, trading the GOP South Carolina Primary and Democrat Nevada Caucus – and we plan to go live on Periscope. Follow @paulmotty on Twitter and Political Gambler on Periscope for updates.

First, to remind and explain recent bets. This morning I put up on Twitter a six-unit bet on Marco Rubio for Betfair’s “SC Primary without Trump” market.

And yesterday, more substantially, I laid back my most recent bet on Ted Cruz at 8.0. Matched at the same odds where it was backed, this is just cancelling an extra position for no profit or loss. It leaves my overall Cruz position as 10 units profit if he isn’t the GOP nominee, 260 units if he does.

Offering this brief explanation.

That, and my two recent pieces about Marco Rubio sum up the situation. It seems highly unlikely that Cruz wins South Carolina and, without finishing a relatively close, clear second ahead of Rubio, he’s likely to drift in the market.

I think Rubio will have a great night, sweeping up votes from the bottom three and benefitting from all his star SC endorsements.

For the record, my South Carolina prediction:

Trump 31%, Rubio 24%, Cruz 20%, Kasich 10%, Bush 8%, Carson 7%.

Finally a new bet on Bernie Sanders to win the Nevada Caucus at 2.6.

Again the reasoning is explained in my earlier piece, which states what a risky odds-on bet Hillary Clinton is. My feeling is the market – particularly in primaries – is under-estimating him. Sanders’ poll trends are excellent and there’s a very good chance they are missing some of his new voters. I think he’ll benefit from a high turnout, making this more like a 50/50 contest, rather than the 62/38 implied by current odds.


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