US election 2012

The BBC headline runs 'US votes in neck-and-neck contest'. Hardly neck and neck when Obama is 1/4 in the betting. What a dross organisation the BBC is keeping people misinformed on everything.
 
You make it sound like the Elections matter.

The basic principles have been corrupted, as usual, with any intelligent folk just not bothering, while the silly folk start to notice after 20 years of the same guy in office (basically) giving up with comments like "nothing changes".

It is basically self defeatism in all its wonderful glory, people are waiting for a person to randomally be elected by people who still either care or are indoctrinated into doing it (family choice or whatever), to fix the problem with THEIR democracy.

This will all end once the baby boomers die out though, the antiquated system wont hold up to a more educated (questionable) populace...at least I desire them to.
 
Guile said:
The BBC headline runs 'US votes in neck-and-neck contest'. Hardly neck and neck when Obama is 1/4 in the betting. What a dross organisation the BBC is keeping people misinformed on everything.
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48-46 in polls is within the margin of error. So technically yeah, it is pretty even. If Ohio is declared Obama the rest of the night is all but certain.

It is all about Gary Johnson anyway:

http://www.adamsmith.org/blog/polit...win-the-election-tonight-but-did-win-my-heart

For all supports of Obama and Romney this is an enlightening read. http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2012/09/why-i-refuse-to-vote-for-barack-obama/262861/
 
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Guile said:
The BBC headline runs 'US votes in neck-and-neck contest'. Hardly neck and neck when Obama is 1/4 in the betting. What a dross organisation the BBC is keeping people misinformed on everything.
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The only misinformed person is you if you think betting odds reflect the actual chance of something happening.

They start out like that but once a book is opened they flutuate based on how much a bookie is set to lose if that event happens. So, if most people bet on Obama, or a lot of money is put on Obama then the odds on him will shorten to make further bets on him less impacting on the bookmaker.

So, the reason Obama is 1 to 4 on is not because he has it in the bag but because most people in the UK will bet on him (allowing political prejudice to inform their decision) to win, hence the short odds.
 
Paddy Power were doing 1/6 for Obama and 4/1 for Romney. I was going to steer clear of betting, but 4/1 was too tempting to pass on in what is essentially a 50/50 race.
 
estebanrey said:
The only misinformed person is you if you think betting odds reflect the actual chance of something happening.
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You are utterly clueless. The market is far more informed than you are. You seem to think the average Joe is making this market with his £10 bets. Since when did everyone here love Obama? £20 million matched on Betfair - a lot of that is shrewd money with access to info that you don't have - insider money.

Since you are so informed, go back Romney at 4/1 - it's a great bet when he should be even money in your dream world.
 
Guile said:
You are utterly clueless. The market is far more informed than you are. You seem to think the average Joe is making this market with his £10 bets. Since when did everyone here love Obama? £20 million matched on Betfair - a lot of that is shrewd money with access to info that you don't have - insider money.

Since you are so informed, go back Romney at 4/1 - it's a great bet when he should be even money in your dream world.
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I did - Just £5, mind you. It does all come down to Ohio & Florida, I reckon. Also, Republicans tend to outperform polls by about 0.5%, and with things looking too close to call in those two states, I decided to go with the cheeky punt.
 
Munky1080 said:
Paddy Power were doing 1/6 for Obama and 4/1 for Romney. I was going to steer clear of betting, but 4/1 was too tempting to pass on in what is essentially a 50/50 race.
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Hardly 50-50.

The hundreds of pre-election polls show that Obama has a fairly tight lock on the electoral college. Romney may win the popular vote, but it won't win him the election unless he pulls back somewhere in the region of 3-4 points from Obama across the swing states.

By historical standards it will be a fairly close race, yes, but it would be something of a statistical anomaly if Romney takes the election. 4-1 odds for him is extremely generous, and is likely driven more by people basing their bet on the media coverage than by any careful analysis of polling data.
 
Go Obama! /mycontribution

:p

Had some fun today having our own debate on this at lunch. Less of a debate, more of a "How many reasons can we come up with showing why Obama > Romney" session :D
 
Guile said:
You are utterly clueless. The market is far more informed than you are. You seem to think the average Joe is making this market with his £10 bets. Since when did everyone here love Obama? £20 million matched on Betfair - a lot of that is shrewd money with access to info that you don't have - insider money.

Since you are so informed, go back Romney at 4/1 - it's a great bet when he should be even money in your dream world.
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And you clearly seem to think bookmakers are morons, the minute they suspect large bets are being placed on "inside information" they close the book.

And I'm not betting on it, I think Obama will win but at 4 to 1 against Romney those odds are way out of kilter with the actual probability. Give me 1000 bets like that and I certainly would bet because I'd be up by the end of it.
 
joeyjojo said:
That's the thing, it's far, far from 50/50 as the "news" is reporting.

Princeton's model puts it at 99.2% likely for Obama http://election.princeton.edu/

NYTimes put it at 90.9% Obama http://fivethirtyeight.blogs.nytimes.com/
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At the risk of creating a partisan flame war, I don't believe anything that the NYT says, and it's well known that Princeton is a liberal hot-bed.

I do agree that Obama is the favourite, and I do think he'll win. Stranger things have happened - ask Thomas Dewey about the 1944 election...
 
Why are the media calling this the closest race in history?

Surely Bush v Gore takes the biscuit on that one.

Bush lost the popular vote.
Won Florida by 537 votes
Legal challenge by Gore up to the Supreme Court
All the faulty ballots debate and investigations.

Read that again, Bush an the election by 537 votes...

You need 270 electoral vote to win, Bush got 271, no one ever got fewer and won.

Can't see this one being anywhere close to that one.


http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-20205649
 
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