There’s money to be made from the global machinations of contemporary politics, meaning a browse around William Hill politics odds followed by a shrewd bet on politics is a must for any seeker of value.





Brexit, the rise of President Trump and Theresa May’s General Election meltdown all saw heavy favourites overturned, and with political shockwaves continually rippling across the planet, that pattern looks set to continue.





Politics betting has been around since the days of Harold Wilson and Ted Heath. Nowadays, with hundreds of millions of pounds staked on election outcomes, spawning thousands of different markets and a huge range of ways to bet, it’s an entirely different beast at William Hill.





UK politics betting

British politics odds markets used to be so predictable. Ed Miliband never looked like a Prime Minister. Scotland seemed split, but unlikely to leave the UK if push came to shove.





The Liberal Democrats were always doomed to suffer the consequences of their coalition with the Conservatives.





Those days are long gone. Brexit has been blamed for many things, but it’s clear that Britain’s sheer determination to at least bloody the EU’s nose has fuelled nights of the highest politics betting drama imaginable in recent years.





What went wrong?

Former Prime Minister David Cameron’s 2013 pledge to hold an EU referendum if re-elected came too late to stop UKIP topping the polls at the following year’s European elections, an outcome many keen British politics odds watchers would have doubted all the way to polling day.





That was the peak of UKIP’s success. Cameron won an unexpected majority in 2015 and forced through a referendum. The rest, as they say, is history.





Markets to watch

William Hill politics Next Party Leader betting markets sometimes resemble Grand National fields, given the number of potential runners and many of the chunky prices on offer.





Factions within parties can reveal hints as to who might emerge as contenders - close political allies often avoid running against each other, sometimes under sufferance and famously so in the case of Tony Blair and Gordon Brown following the death of then-Labour leader John Smith in 1994.





By-elections can also throw up fascinating politics odds markets, with George Galloway’s 2012 victory in Bradford West, under the banner of the Respect party, thought practically impossible when the vote was called.









The Liberal Democrats and the Conservatives have registered notable by-election gains in recent years, and with Brexit continually exposing the frailties of popular support, fresh surprises surely lie ahead. Visit news.williamhill.com for UK politics betting news.





General Elections

With 650 seats up for grabs and a raft of politics betting markets to contend with, UK General Elections represent the Holy Grail of politics odds.





There are a few quirks, of course. The Speaker of the House of Commons usually gets a bye from the main parties, and many safe seats are safe for some time yet, but the UK politics betting landscape is certainly shifting under our feet, with green shoots of value bursting through the cracks.





Shock reversals at the 2017 General Election included Labour’s unlikely double of Kensington and Canterbury, and the Conservatives capturing Mansfield, with the respective parties never previously holding these territories in their illustrious histories.





Given the winds of change, politics odds aficionados are forced to view the situation through various prisms, with the parties’ positions on Brexit now seemingly as important as their perceived economic competence, historically thought the key factor in electoral success.





Labour pains

If past performance is the best indicator of future results, the red team shoulder a heavy burden going into every General Election, with only three Labour Prime Ministers able to boast of winning parliamentary majorities in over a century of trying.





Luckily for them, the once-mighty Conservatives have managed as much just once since 1992, having dominated UK politics with few interludes during the previous 40 years.





It all adds up to chaos, confusion, and bags of William Hill politics odds value for shrewd bettors at the next General Election, with markets such as constituency betting, most votes, most seats, next government, next prime minister, over/under seats/votes and much more to look forward to.





US politics odds

Whichever side of the fence you sit, find all the latest US politics odds on the road to 2020 with William Hill, including presidential election winner, winning party, and Republican and Democrat presidential nominees.





Having come through so much relatively unscathed despite the firestorms raging around him, President Trump must feel cautiously optimistic about his chances of winning a second term in the White House.





Beating 16 Republican challengers into submission before seeing off Hillary Clinton for the grand prize was no mean feat, with Trump-supporting US politics betting enthusiasts rewarded with outsider odds all the way from the start of primary season to election day.





Only one Republican president has flunked their re-election bid since Herbert Hoover in 1932, and that failure - by George H.W. Bush in 1992 - was partly brought about by a strong third-party candidate splitting the vote.





The polarised nature of 21st Century politics means there’s unlikely to be any such spanner thrown in the works next time round, but the two-horse race looks a close call whoever the Democrats choose as their champion.





Top tips for a bet on politics





Know the rules

Many factors contribute to the formation of a politics odds market, but they’re not necessarily the same factors that lead to the result.





The best example of this can be seen in next party leader betting markets, where non-MPs regularly feature as immediate contenders, despite party rule books insisting that the leaders must sit in the House of Commons.





Other factors such as the number of nominations required to reach the ballot, no confidence votes - which have the potential to topple Conservative leaders, though apparently not Labour’s - and the prospect of the final say being put to the wider members should also be taken into account.





In the US, the rise of Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez prompted a brief clamour for the Democratic Congresswoman to run for president in 2020, before it emerged that she will be too young to qualify for the office.





Don’t (always) listen to the polls

Political polling firms have had little to crow about of late, having largely missed Brexit, the rise of Trump and Labour’s shock progress at the 2017 General Election.





Indeed, given Jeremy Corbyn and co were reportedly trailing the Conservatives by around 20 points when that vote was called, and that Leave was a long way behind Remain going into the EU referendum campaign, the industry looks bankrupt.





However, there are always outliers that simply weren’t believed at the time, such as the Survation polls that showed Labour within a point of the Conservatives in 2017, or Arron Banks’ internal polling for Leave.EU days before the EU referendum, which also proved prescient.





Scouring through constituency polling has rewarded William Hill UK politics odds players in the past, with Lord Ashcroft’s detailed findings among the best guesses ahead of the 2015 General Election, but the cost of these endeavours make such valuable data understandably rare.





What we can say with some certainty given recent trends is that mid-term polling - or what is perceived as mid-term at the time - is a poor indicator of General Election results and does little but provide impatient journalists and political enemies with questionable ammunition.