(Image: Private Media)

If the sheer volume and variety of opinion polls is making your head spin, head to Ladbrokes and have a look at the numbers that really count: the betting odds. 

There’s plenty of money being wagered on the teal independents, but the really interesting electorate is the Western Sydney seat of Reid, held by the Liberal Party’s Dr Fiona Martin on a margin of 3.2%. Reid, former Liberal minister Craig Laundy’s old electorate, is considered a bellwether seat that tends to swing with whoever wins government. 

The odds on Labor challenger Sally Sitou are at $1.60, with Martin on $2.20. Sitou was a staffer on Maxine McKew’s winning campaign in neighbouring Bennelong in 2007 and worked in international development before commencing her PhD at Sydney Uni’s business school. Her Chinese parents fled Laos after the Vietnam War.

Martin, a child psychologist and moderate Liberal, was one of four MPs to cross the floor over the religious discrimination bill.

This will be a seat to watch on election night. 

Victoria’s most marginal seat is the eastern Melbourne electorate of Chisholm, held by Liberal Gladys Liu on a margin of 0.5%. The Ladbroke customers are betting that Liu ($2.05) will lose to the Labor challenger, former union official Carina Garland ($1.70). 

And over in the teal column, as of yesterday afternoon the smart money had gone to independent candidate Allegra Spender to win Sydney’s Wentworth, the richest electorate in the country. The odds for Spender are at $1.80; Liberal MP Dave Sharma is on $1.90. 

In the inner-eastern suburbs of Melbourne, the punters have Goldstein’s Liberal MP Tim Wilson ($1.83) slightly ahead of independent candidate and former ABC journalist Zoe Daniel ($1.90). 

Federal Treasurer Josh Frydenberg ($1.70) is still ahead of independent Dr Monique Ryan ($2.05) in Kooyong, and (perhaps because of the dire warnings of former PM John Howard) the betting markets have Liberal MP Trent Zimmerman ($1.53) fighting off independent challenger Kylea Tink ($2.45) to retain his seat of North Sydney.  

And the overall winner? As of this morning, Labor was tipped to win with odds of $1.33 compared with $3.15 for the Coalition.

But these figures don’t tell the full story. 

Ladbroke’s Tom Hackett says it’s important to make a distinction between the amount of money wagered (current hold percentage) and the number of bets placed (current bet percentage).

When it comes to the total money flowing into Ladbrokes’ coffers, 70% of it is betting on a Labor win. But if you look at the number of bets being placed, 55% of that number is being wagered on a Coalition win, with 45% betting on Labor.

The current hold figure relates to larger bets, usually placed on what the bettor thinks the outcome will be. But the smaller wagers are usually made by people betting on who they want to win. So you could conclude that professional political watchers think Labor will win and are betting larger amounts. But at the same time slightly more rank-and-file punters, who wager smaller amounts, actually want the Coalition to win. 

In 2019 the total amount being wagered pointed to a Labor win. But the bet tracker, which counts the number of bets, gave it to the Coalition.  

What this all means is that the 2022 result is anyone’s guess. 

Hackett says: “We are three weeks into the campaign and we continue to see plenty of fluctuation in both outright betting and individual seats. Labor started the campaign at $1.36 and got out to as long as $1.82, but are now back into $1.34 [now $1.33].

“The big money continues to come for Labor, but we are still seeing more individual bets for the Coalition. This was the case in 2019 and the individual bet tracker [which tracks the numbers of bets] predicted the upset victory for the Coalition.

“We are confident that we will continue to see plenty of fluctuation in the market and the volume of betting will only increase as we get closer to election day.” 

You can bet on that.