The odds: Lib-Con coalition increasingly likely

Wednesday, 21 April 2010 12:00 AM

Sandamali Zbyszewski

David Cameron has been heavily backed to bounce back and win the second leaders' televised debate.

William Hill have cut his odds for the fourth time. He started out at 9/4 and the odds for a Conservative win have now lengthened to 11/8.

Despite these fluctuations, Nick Clegg remains the favourite at 4/6 with Gordon Brown the complete outsider at 8/1.

William Hill spokesman said, Graham Sharpe said; "Mr Cameron is certainly the punters' choice for the second debate.

"Nick Clegg has attracted some support, but Gordon Brown has been totally friendless in the market - not one bet of over £10 has been placed on him."

Similar trends have been reported by Paddy Power. The bookmaker was recently forced to slash its odds on the Liberal Democrats winning more than 80 seats to just 4/7. The chances of such a good performance were as big as 3/1 the previous week.

The change in fortunes seems to be at the expense of the Labour Party. The odds of Labour winning only 201-250 seats have been cut to just 10/11 whilst the chances of Gordon Brown winning 301-350 seats has being left untouched by punters and has consequently drifted to 10/1 from 8/1.

The odds that Labour will win the most seats on May 6th slid to 7/2 from 10/3.

Worse still for the party, the Liberal Democrat leader Nick Clegg is also distancing himself from Labour. Having called Brown a "desperate politician", the odds of Clegg aligning his party to a Lib-Lab coalition with Labour have drifted to 7/4 from 6/4 while the odds of a coalition with the Tories have shortened to 3/1 from 5/1.

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• domestic policy
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• elections
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• general election 2010
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• political betting