Paddy Power taking bets on Board of Deputies election

A leading betting company is offering odds on the election of the next Board of Deputies president.

Current vice-president and City editor of the Daily Mail Alex Brummer is the only candidate to have thrown his hat into the ring so far – a fact that may have helped his position as the 2/3 favourite with Paddy Power.

Senior vice-president Laura Marks and the the third of the current line-up of vice-presidents, Jonathan Arkush, are both widely tipped to run in the May poll. They are given odds of 11/8 and 7/1 respectively but those are likely to narrow if they declare.

This is the first time the company has taken bets on a Board election and the odds given highlight the fact a victor is tough to predict.

A spokesperson for Paddy Power said “It’s unlikely that we’re going to take millions on something like this and we therefore wouldn’t do the same level of research as we would for say a US Presidential election.”

“However, it is important to us that our odds are credible and we would look to lean on one of our external contacts for some insight to allow us to price the betting. Once the original odds are set we then trade the odds according to the money coming in, for example, if one candidate was to attract 90% of all bets this would suggest to us that we have our odds wrong and we would slash the price on that particular candidate until the betting evened out.”