Weekly update on the betting market

It has been an unusually volatile week on the betting market. We will look at that volatility more closely in a minute, but first the most recent results.

	House	Coalition Odds ($)	Labor Odds ($)	Coalition Win Probability (%)
2016-02-19	Betfair	1.13	6.70	85.57
2016-02-19	CrownBet	1.11	6.50	85.41
2016-02-19	Ladbrokes	1.10	6.25	85.03
2016-02-19	Luxbet	1.10	7.00	86.42
2016-02-19	Sportsbet	1.10	6.00	84.51
2016-02-19	TABtouch	1.14	5.50	82.83
2016-02-19	William Hill	1.13	6.00	84.15

In the next table we can see the movements of the various bookmakers each day over the past week. Luxbet ended the week roughly where it started (an 86.5 per cent probability of a Coalition win), but ranged between 81 and 88 per cent. Ladbrokes and Betfair increased their probability over the week; while TABtouch and William Hill decreased theirs.

	Fri	Sat	Sun	Mon	Tue	Wed	Thu	Fri
Betfair	82.35	84.72	86.12	85.80	85.10	83.45	83.58	85.57
CrownBet	85.41	85.41	85.41	85.41	85.41	85.41	85.41	85.41
Ladbrokes	81.30	81.30	81.30	81.30	83.08	85.03	85.03	85.03
Luxbet	86.53	86.53	86.53	86.53	88.20	87.51	81.17	86.42
Sportsbet	84.51	84.51	84.51	84.51	84.51	84.51	84.51	84.51
TABtouch	84.27	84.27	84.27	84.27	84.27	82.83	82.83	82.83
William Hill	85.41	85.41	85.41	85.41	85.41	84.15	84.15	84.15

The volatility is also evident in the most recent charts.

The contrary volatility in the betting markets this week had me wondering whether the major political parties place bets with the goal of generating trend stories on social media. The markets, this far out from an election, are probably thin enough to allow strategic bets to influence market movements that last for at least a few days.

For more information on how I track the betting markets, click here.