Scotch Independence - the countdown
- Thread starter stopmeandslapme
- Start date
-
Please bear with us on the new site integration and fixing any known bugs over the coming days. If you can not log in please try resetting your password and check your spam box. If you have tried these steps and are still struggling email [email protected] with your username/registered email address
-
very good Mick!
1/8 No and 9/2 yes Jip
The bookies are rarely wrong when the odds are so heavily in one side's favour. So why so much blind optimism from the Yes lot (ST, Aldo, Eric Cartman etc) on here?
A lot of it's to do with the accuracy of the polls I think. He'll correct me if i'm wrong but I'm sure ST said that at the last election the polls predicted a labour landslide and the SNP ended up getting full control. I don't know what the markets were saying then but it would be logical to assume labour would have been long odds on. They've got it spectacularly wrong down here as well of course - I think John major had pretty much moved out of Downing Street in 1992 as they said labour would cruise it! That being the case there is definitely grounds for optimism from the yes camp.
I don't pay much heed to Polls, especially when most people I know are undecided. I feel the undecideds may be leaning towards a Yes vote so it will be a lot tighter than the polls are suggesting.
Why are the odds so strongly against a Yes vote when the polls are so close?
Fair enough, there may have been isolated incidents in the past when they got it badly wrong. But as the old saying goes, you don't get many poor book-keepers.
Ah well therein lies the rub Jip. You'd have to ask Mick as he understands it far btter but I'm pretty sure that if you have a 2 horse race and 1 is 1/8 you'd expect to have far better odds than 9/2 on the other one. Says to me that the bookies aren't altogether convinced.
You've got to look at who is paying for the polls and also who is responsible for the polls. For example, the cheif exec of YouGov is a big Tory donor. As Dan referred to earlier the polls at the last election showed it was neck and neck between Labour and the SNP. This included polls from YouGov, Mori Ipsos etc showing just one or two points between them and in one of the polls Labour were actually in the lead. On the actual day the SNP won the biggest victory in Scottish election history.
The moral of the story? You get what you pay for when you commission a poll and most of the polls showing a lead for No are paid for by Better Together or by newspapers who back the union such as the Daily Mail and Scotsman.
It's noticeable that pollsters such as Survation, who are neutral, show the No lead to be only a couple of points.
I reckon the bookies expect the media to ram home the no propaganda. However newspapers just don't have the same influence they once had.
Bookies are ****e when it comes to politics and England's chances of winning major tournaments 