Money in Politics

As far as I can tell there are no odds markets like http://www.biz.uiowa.edu/iem/, http://www.intrade.com for Slovakia’s politics, but there are more traditional bookies that sometimes deal in politics.  In 2006 Tipos (http://ekurz.etip.sk) dabbled in parliamentary odds, but did a rather poor job such that straight betting on the poll averages allowed would-be-bettors to make money (http://www.pozorblog.com/?p=18).  Now Nike (http://www2.nike.sk/index.php?cmd=sk/info/clanky/full-section/4480) has entered the fray with a presidential option.  This is probably a no-brainer since the election outcome is unlikely to change from current polls putting Gasparovic ahead, and betting on him at 1.2:1 would probably yield less than the transaction costs.  Still, I’ll try to follow these numbers and see if they change on a daily basis.  Here are the current odds:

Gasparovic, 1.2:1
Radicova, 3.5:1
Martinakova, 100:1
Miklosko, 120:1
Melnik, 800:1
Bollova, 900:1
Sidor: 1000:1

What makes the difference between Melnik’s 800 and Sidor’s 1000 is a curiosity, but I suppose if everybody other than Radicova was 500:1 it wouldn’t seem very interesting for the bettors.

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