Bookmakers Give Even Odds on a Ma Ying-jeou Win with a Point Spread of 300,000 Votes

Bookmakers Give Even Odds on a Ma Ying-jeou Win with a Point Spread of 300,000 Votes

Source: China Times

November 4, 2011

There are three tickets running in the 2012 Presidential election.  The gambling on its outcome has come to light, and bookies still favor President Ma Ying-jeou winning in the Presidential election.  Bookies have set even odds on a Ma Ying-jeou win with a point spread of 300,000 votes.

According to an informed source, bookmakers in Taichung are taking bets on a Ma Ying-jeou win with a point spread of 300,000 votes against Tsai Ing-wen.  Another bet is whether James Soong will garner more or less than 600,000 votes.  Both bets are even odds with the bookmakers taking a 5% commission.

The same source indicated that the bookmakers gave even odds on a Ma Ying-jeou win with a point spread of 500,000 votes two months ago, 400,000 votes a month ago, and 300,000 votes now.

According to some bookmakers, before James Soong sent his endorsements to the Central Election Commission (CEC), it was not clear whether or not he would run in the 2012 Presidential election, so bookies were not taking bets on Soong, with gamblers still waiting and watching.  Bookmakers went on to say that now that James Soong had sent his endorsements to the CEC to demonstrate his determination to run to the end, it would have impact on the election and the book-making.

Right from the beginning most gamblers placed their bets on Ma Ying-jeou, so bookmakers were worried that they could end up losing big.  Therefore, the bookmakers decided not to take any more bets on Ma Ying-jeou and only accepted bets on Tsai Ing-wen.  A few days ago, when James Soong told the public in a press conference that he had collected endorsements exceeding the threshold stipulated by the CEC, the bookmakers started accepting bets on either Ma Ying-jeou or Tsai Ing-wen.

Gamblers stated that betting was more interesting now because Ma Ying-jeou’s election prospects would be affected if James Soong decided to run in the election to the end.

So far, bookmakers in northern Taiwan had still not started accepting bets.  However, bookmakers in southern Taiwan had given even odds on a Ma Ying-jeou win with a point spread of 300,000 votes; in other words, the bookies favored Ma Ying-jeou.

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