Oddschecker: Odds for Labour Victory hit a New Low

The odds being given amongst the country's leading bookmakers on a Labour victory on June 8 have hit a new low.

Labour were seen as short as 6/1 to win next month’s general election, despite being a massive 30/1 earlier this month report Oddschecker in a briefing released May 26.

The shift in market sentiment comes as polls confirm the Labour party is seeing a surge in popularity amongst the UK public who appear hungry for a dose of nationalisations, tax hikes and uncosted spending committments.

The shortening of odds for Labour has seen those of others drift significantly with the Liberal Democrats, UKIP and Greens all now 1000/1.

The Conservative party remain favourites to win the most seats on June 8th, but their odds have lengthened to 1/11 from 1/100 over the course of the last few weeks.

Despite the shift in odds, Labour still only remain favourites in 171 different constituencies, but even this hasn’t stopped politics punters backing Corbyn’s party.

Oddschecker report seeing just over sixty percent of bets being placed on Labour winning the most seats, compared to thirty-three percent being placed on Theresa May’s Conservatives.

The drift in odds for the Tories has been enough to get some high-stakes punters back involved in the market.

Oddschecker witnessed plenty of huge punts for May’ party when they were 1/33 to win the most seats and as the odds have slowly become more generous, Oddschecker have seen these people reinvest.

There have been numerous bets of over £50,000 on the general election result, with one punter having over £320,000 on the Conservative party winning the most seats.

Even with the shortening of odds for the Labour party Oddschecker are yet to see this backed up by large-stake bets from the big punters. Volume remains high but the biggest bet is still £1,250, back when the Labour party were 16/1 for the election.

“The General Election is following the same pattern as most big political events from the last 12 months with the majority of bets placed on a dramatic change, but the big stakes are placed on the status quo being maintained. However, recent history has shown that the big punters can be wrong with the US election and Brexit both leading to significant loses for big bettors,” says Oddschecker spokesman, Sam Eaton.

With regards to the outlook and for an idea on whether Labour can continue to slash their odds, watch the set of polls due out in the Sunday papers.

We suspect the momentum might slow, or reverse from here, as memories of Theresa May's disastrous manifesto launch fade and voters turn to the issue of the day once more - Brexit.