Betting on politics

In a few days’ time, Greece will go to the polls to decide who will govern the country for the next four years. While both Betfair and Smarkets have markets on the outcome, sadly neither of them are liquid enough to be useful. The good news is that the bookmaker Bet365 is offering odds, and it has the incumbent centre-right New Democracy as the favourite to get most votes at 1/7 (85.7%), with the left-wing Syriza at 4/1 (20%) in second place. The centre-left PASOK-Kinkal are way out in third place at 500/1 (0.019%).

Since the last elections in 2019, New Democracy has had a big lead in every opinion poll that has been published. Indeed, during the early part of the pandemic, the party was nearly 30 points ahead, and even as late as July 2021 one pollster still had it more than 20 points in front.

Of course, as you might expect the polls have narrowed a lot since then, especially over the past few weeks. However, surveys still give New Democracy an edge of between 4.5 and 8 percentage points over Syriza. Even allowing for polling error and last-minute changes of heart, this is a comfortable enough lead to make it worth betting on the party to get the most votes.

As well as the main event, Bet 365 is also offering some interesting side bets on the election, including over/under bets on the vote share of each of the parties. One that offers particularly good value is on whether New Democracy will get more than 32.75% of the vote. The odds are 2/5 (71.4) on the party getting more and 7/4 (36.3%) on it getting less. If you average all the polls taken in May, they have New Democracy getting an average of 36.4%. As a result, I’d say that you should bet on it to get more than 32.75%.