Tory leadership contests: A betting history

If the betting markets are any guide, we are heading for a Tory party leadership contest at some point this year. What are the odds that one of the favourites win, or should we be looking for a big -priced outsider?

It was often said (before 2019 anyway) that the favourite never wins Tory party leadership contests. There is at least some truth to that - it really depends how far in advance you measure the odds from. Looking back at the 21st century contests we can see that it wasn't straightforward to predict in advance who was going to emerge from the pack.

First, a caveat: It's not all that easy to find out exactly where the betting markets stood at points in the past, particularly in the era before on-line betting became predominant. So some of these measurement dates will seem a bit arbitrary, but it was the best we could do with the publicly available data. We've used Smarkets last matched prices or industry estimates.

The race to succeed Theresa May was wide open in January 2019 with Hunt, Gove, Javid, Johnson and Raab all very close in the betting - if you'd have picked a slightly different date Johnson would have been favourite and his price got a lot shorter throughout the first half of the year.

I think this would lead me to being a little cautious about backing Rishi Sunak. Having said that, in previous eras we wouldn't always have had the kind of polling data we have now, which is currently showing Sunak way ahead amongst party members - although of course he will have to make the final two with MPs before that kicks in.