If the punters are correct Opposition Leader Peter Dutton is going to lose the election by an unhealthy margin, and Anthony Albanese will secure a second term in office with a slender majority.
Daily Mail Australia has tallied the seat by seat figures in the betting markets, and as of lunch time on Tuesday – according to where the money goes – Labor is predicted to win 77 seats compared to just 59 for the Coalition.
If accurate that would give Albo a narrow majority, and means that he won’t be forced to negotiate with the Greens or other crossbenchers when forming government.
Meanwhile, the odds suggest the Coalition will need to do some major soul searching in the election aftermath, having performed only slightly better than it did at the 2022 election under Scott Morrison‘s leadership.
A result like the one currently being predicted by the betting markets would suggest Dutton’s future as opposition leader is in doubt. So too is the Coalition’s central campaign promise to build nuclear reactors to service the nation’s energy needs.
Major betting agencies allow punters to wager on the overall election outcome – which also predicts a Labor victory – as well as in individual seat-by-seat contests. The more money that gets placed on a candidate to win the shorter their odds become.
The state of the odds now tells us that during the four weeks of election campaigning punters have heavily backed Labor to win in key marginal seats. The longer the campaign has gone on, Labor’s predicted share of seats has continued to grow.
At the very beginning of week one of the campaign, when the first published polls suggested Labor had regained the lead in the two party vote, the betting agencies still has the Coalition winning more seats than the Labor Party – by 72 seats compared to just 68 for Albanese.
Anthony Albanese on the campaign trail with fiancee Jodie Haydon (behind right) and Treasurer Jim Chalmers (behind left)
Greens leader Adam Bandt, pictured spruiking dental in Medicare, during the election campaign
The dramatic turnaround since then has reflected both what published opinion polls are saying and assessments by commentators and political journalists of how the campaign has played out. According to most commentators Albanese has got the better of Dutton on the campaign hustings.
Based on where punters are placing their bets, the Coalition won’t gain any seats in Tasmania or the Northern Territory. It was previously expected to win the seats of Lyons (TAS) and Lingiari (NT).
The WA seat of Tangney was an unexpected pick up for Labor at the last election and is now predicted to be retained by Labor, and punters also think the government will win the newly formed WA seat of Bullwinkle.
Labor are also favoured by punters in the NSW marginal seats of Bennelong, Paterson, Robertson and Dobell, which wasn’t the case at the start of the campaign when all were expected to fall to the Liberal Party.
Against the Teals, the betting markets suggest Liberal challengers will lose narrowly in Goldstein and Curtin but reclaim former Treasurer Josh Frydenberg’s seat of Kooyong. However, the teal candidate in Bradfield is expected to win a seat in parliament following the retirement of Liberal MP Paul Fletcher.
The only Liberal Party gains against Labor – according to the betting odds – are the seats of Gilmore (NSW) and Aston in Melbourne‘s outer suburbs. Labor is favoured ahead of both the Greens and Liberal Party in the seat of Brisbane to help offset those loses and thereby retain its majority.
At the start of the election campaign both major party leaders were vying for underdog status, but it’s now clear that Albo’s Labor are the overwhelming favourites to win. It’s come to the point where the PM will be disappointed not to secure a majority in his own right if the results don’t reflect the betting markets.
Labor’s looming victory is despite opinion polls consistently showing that a large portion of the electorate believe Labor underperformed during its first term in office. However, voters appear unwilling to change the government as a consequence, presumably because they don’t think the alternative on offer is ready to return to power so soon after losing the 2022 election.
A result like the one currently being predicted by the betting markets would suggest Peter Dutton’s future as opposition leader is in doubt, writes Peter van Onselen
No first term government has lost a federal election since 1931, meaning that they all secured a second term in power, and an assessment of the betting markets suggest that won’t be changing this year either.
One of Albanese’s assistant ministers, Dr Andrew Leigh, was a professor at ANU before entering politics. He wrote an academic paper for the Australian Journal of Political Science back in 2002 comparing the accuracy of election forecasting models, including betting markets and opinion polls.
Dr Leigh’s research found that where the money goes and where punters place their bets is the most accurate way to predict election results. If that proves to be true at this year’s election, Albo won’t be moving into his waterfront retirement home at Copacabana any time soon.
