Odds on ‘No’ vote shorten slightly. The intensity of the referendum campaign increased markedly this week. The ‘Yes’ and ‘No’ campaigns published contrasting pictures of Scotland’s fiscal future: there was a huge row involving Patrick Dunleavy of LSE about the transition costs associated with independence (which I had discussed in a slightly less serious fashion with Sanjeev Kohli in the BBC programme ‘The Blethering Referendum’ – glad he didn’t try to pin me down on numbers). By the end of the week (up to May 30th), the odds on a ‘No’ vote had slightly shortened. My analysis of the latest betting odds (Figure 1), using the methodology I set out here, shows a slight uptick in the probability of a ‘No’ vote from 0.7 to 0.74 in the last two weeks.
Figure 1: Probability of a ‘No’ vote based on market expectations.
Still all to play for, now that the official campaign has begun, but no clear evidence from the betting odds that the events of last week have had the same negative effect on the ‘No’ campaign that followed Mr Osborne’s contribution to the debate on currency options last February. It is obviously not yet possible to know if there will be a delayed reaction to last week’s events. Watch this space for further monitoring of the gambling odds.
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