Conservatives, Liberals or Liberal Democrats?

Prime Minister Gordon Brown is fighting for his political life in the 2010 May 6th General Election. Many in the UK are suspecting that a hung parliament may well be on the cards and in the words of many Brits, the situation can best be described as ‘dodgy.'

Fortunately, various leading sportsbooks are less ambiguous when it comes to the odds they are providing for political betting folks. According to the latest odds put forth by popular sportsbooks in William Hill and Ladbrokes, the UK election odds have taken on the following texture:

• Conservatives have odds of 1/20
• Labour has odds of 8/1
• Liberal Democrats have odds of 40/1

At the same time the odds of a Conservative overall majority are 5/4, while odds of a Labour majority have temporarily been suspended. Liberal Democrats are certainly not expected to win an outright majority with odds of 66/1. An interesting situation crops up when the issue of a Hung Parliament is raised - the odds of that occurring are 4/6.

Times and numbers - big bucks are riding on it

Ladbrokes is betting 8/11 that the election results will be ready before 23h00 tonight. And the odds of a genuine result after 23h00 are sitting at even-Stevens. When it comes to the physical numbers of Conservative seats, there are lots of interesting odds on offer:

• Under 100 seats provides odds of 100/1
• 100-124 seats with odds of 150/1
• 200-224 seats provides odds of 50/1
• 275-299 seats provide competitive odds of 7/2
• 300-349 seats provide odds of 2/1

Labour's seat totals are looking equally competitive:

• If Labour scores 0-9 seats the odds are 200/1
• If Labour scores 50-59 seats the odds are 14/1
• If Labour scores 90-99 seats the odds are 4/1

The odds for the smaller political parties work along similar lines with higher seat totals being commensurate with higher odds. The list of other parties includes: SNP seats, Scottish Conservative seats and Plaid Cymru seats. Most sportsbooks agree that Conservatives should score the most votes with odds of 1/25 (Ladbrokes), Labour at 16/1 and Liberal Democrats 12/1.

William Hill is offering 8/15 odds that Gordon Brown will quit altogether by Saturday..