Australian punters are defying opinion polls and backing Prime Minister John Howard to retain power in an October 9 election expected to become one of the country's major betting events in 2004, bookmaker Centrebet said Monday.
Centrebet analyst Gerard Daffy said Howard's conservative Liberal-National coalition was the early 1.55 dollar (1.09 US) favourite among punters, while opposition leader Mark Latham's centre-left Labour Party was the 2.30 dollar underdog.
This means anyone putting one dollar on Howard to win would get a return of just 55 cents plus his original stake.
The betting goes against recent opinion polls, which give Labor an election-winning lead of 11-6 percent in a direct two-way contest.
Daffy said Centrebet expected Australians to bet more than two million dollars (1.4 million US) on the election, more than the combined stake the bookmaker takes on the country's two major winter sporting codes, rugby league and Australian rules.
He said Australians were inclined to have a flutter on the election because, under the country's mandatory voting laws, they have to cast a ballot and so feel they have a stake in the outcome.
"We all have a vested interest in it, because we all have to vote," he said.
Daffy said punters had successfully predicted the outcome of the last election in 2001, when Howard won a third term even though opinion polls had the then Labor leader Kim Beazley as a hot favourite.
"It only took a few things, like September 11, and he (Beazley) went from being a short priced favourite at 1.28 dollar, when we first opened our books, to a massive 3.50 dollar underdog on polling day," he said.
"It only takes one national or international issue to upend the whole campaign.
"Up until the day before the last election, the polls were saying it was terribly close, or it was going to be a Labour win.
"The polls were wrong," Daffy added. "But the punters' poll, which backed the coalition from 1.33 dollars into 1.20 dollars a week before the election, was again on the money."
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