Maybe at this election we should just toss a coin?

BELLA COUNIHAN March 25, 2010 - 12:17PM

Betting can certainly get many of us into trouble, especially when you're willing to bet on anything. A famous case was an American punter in the late '90s, Brian Zembic, who bet he could get breast implants and keep them for a whole year. Some poor sucker took the committed gambler on, only to end up $100,000 out of pocket. Indeed Zembic became so comfortable with the breasts that he kept them longer than necessary, even becoming somewhat famous for being the man with the $100,000 breasts. Politics is all about the punt, the gamble, the odds, the numbers. But maybe if we focus so much on which horse crosses the finishing line first, politics could look as silly as a man sporting a pair of C-cups.
Recently, Centrebet reported a $2500 bet on Julia Gillard becoming PM before the next election, pushing the odds in Julia's favour from $5.25 to $3.75. The bet focused attention on Julia and her Labor colleagues, prompting backbencher Darren Cheeseman to foolishly say that Gillard was "naturally in line" for Labor leadership, once again feeding leadership rumours.
Sensibly enough, the deputy PM quashed the speculation, arguing that the original punter behind the $2500 bet probably should have spent his money elsewhere. Not because it might trivialise the political process to put money on the leadership of the country, but instead that it was an ill-considered bet unlikely to see any return. Gillard didn't argue that it was trivialising, I suppose because punters on the track, watching to see who wins, is an inherent part of the game of politics.
To see this in action you have only to look back to the recent Rudd v Abbott debate, the first of three election debates; this one held on the issue of health and hospital reform. The principle question after the debate was not ''did the debate actually cover the issues?'' Or ''was there an exchange or a refuting of ideas?'' No, it was all about who won the debate, who got across the best message most consistently and most convincingly. We seem to miss the point that the winner of a debate is not the same as the candidate with the best policy, the focus is always on the race. After all why would there be "worms" and "polliegraphs" to measure the audience's reaction, if not to establish a "winner". Not that they are so accurate in such a subjective game. Abbott indeed declared that the worm has "never liked a Liberal leader". But that's probably what the "loser" of a debate would say, right?
I suppose the reason we want to be bet on politics is because it is, after all, a game of chance. You need to have all your moons aligned at the right time to get ahead and even then you can get thrown out of the race. Take the most recent federal leadership contest in the Liberal party. At the time, just before Abbott was decided leader on the December 1, Centrebet released their odds just 24 hours before the spill in favour of Joe Hockey at $1.28. Joe Hockey was tipped at the time to get through despite his close alignment to Malcolm Turnbull, who the betting agency saw as a dead duck in the water at $3.00. But who was coming in third in this three-legged race? Tony Abbott all the way out from left field at $3.10. Hockey may well have been the odds on favourite but I suppose in Canberra when you roll the dice don't be shocked when it shows 7. The random nature and unpredictability of political outcomes means the betting agencies have quite a job calculating the variables and figuring the odds, although they will always be influenced by where the punters' money is going. Political betting in many ways is like any other gambling pursuit. There's information out there to get the edge. I mean, what is polling if not a means of helping us judge who is more likely to "win" at the biggest race of all, the federal election. Who are political pundits if not simply the ones that claim they have a gambling "system" to predict outcomes? There is, and probably always will be, a focus on the winners and losers in politics, and therefore a focus on figuring out the odds of each outcome. It's a fascination that is hard to get away from, so maybe we should just go with it. Maybe next election we should just toss a coin and make the whole process a lot easier.
Bella Counihan writes for The Goanna.