Epress.am News from Armenia
A confident punter Wednesday slapped a whopping 200,000-dollar ($182,000 US) bet on Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard to win August 21 elections, topping a sudden rash of wagers for the ruling party, AFP reports.
Sportingbet said the big flutter followed an earlier 100,000-dollar wager and pushed Gillard’s Labor Party down to odds of 1.45 dollars per dollar bet, while the opposition Coalition blew out to 2.65.
Chief executive Michael Sullivan said it showed “the tide has certainly turned for Labor in the minds of punters” after Gillard struggled in the opening weeks of campaigning.
“Punters very rarely get it wrong when they bet like this,” Sullivan told the West Australian newspaper.
“Over the last fortnight we couldn’t find anyone to back the government, but they seem to have stemmed the bleeding in their campaign and punters have responded in astounding fashion,” he added.
Rival Sportsbet’s Haydn Lane said the conservatives also appeared to have run out of luck with his members, with 95 percent of bets in the past two days favouring Labor.
“We found it hard to write a bet on Labor for almost two weeks, however, that trend has completely reversed in the past 48 hours,” said Lane.
Labor was on 1.42 to win while opposition leader Tony Abbott’s odds had blown out to 2.80.
Centrebet said the party had experienced its biggest wagers since Gillard deposed ex-leader Kevin Rudd in a June party coup, with 60,000 dollars placed on her to win on Tuesday.
Gillard’s has made strong appearances on two popular TV programmes in the past two days, while Abbott floundered over details of his new national broadband scheme when quizzed by veteran ABC interview Kerry O’Brien.