SBC News Voice of the Sports Betting Industry
With the Conservative government split on how to negotiate the UK’s European Union withdrawal, bookmakers have been forced to revise all political betting markets.
Hard Brexit Tory party figureheads are pressuring PM Theresa May to abandon her much-maligned ‘Chequers Common Rulebook Proposal’, as the party prepares for its Annual Conservative Conference on 30 September (ICC Birmingham).
Furthermore, this week former Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson published his latest Sunday Telegraph opinion piece stating that the ‘fix was in’ and that PM May’s advisory team had gone into EU negotiations ‘waving the white, whilst throwing away all Brexit advantages’.
Entering the final six months of EU negotiations, Johnson has positioned himself as lead ‘Brexit rebel’, bound for a leadership collision with PM May.
This week’s events have seen, Ladbrokes Politics shorten Johnson odds of being next Prime Minister from 5/1 to 9/2, with former Conservative market front-runner Jacob Rees-Mogg being pushed out to 10/1 (previous 8/1).
Nevertheless, whilst Ladbrokes shorts Johnson’s PM price, Paddy Power Politics believes that the Tories fractured state, may likely lead to the calling of a ‘Second Referendum’.
Paddy Power Politics have cut the price on the holding a second referendum from 3/1 to 5/2 on the re-vote taking place before April 1st, but further notes that the odds of Britain getting a ‘no deal’, have also tumbled, to 11/10.
Spokesman Paddy Power said: “Much like her moves in Africa, Theresa May’s Brexit plans are all over the place – and her own party is hardly in the mood for patience.
“Though BoJo’s scheming does appear to be making a leadership challenge more imminent, it’s not stemming the tide of a Brexit re-vote. Who knew that leaving a multi-billion-pound economic safety net might be a major cause of concern for the financial well-being for what is, ultimately, a rather small and remote island?”
