There’s less than a week to go before the 2024 London Mayoral Elections, and with Sadiq Khan at -4000 to win a record third term, we’re looking at the political futures betting market on Khan’s margin of victory.
The 2024 London Mayoral Elections are taking place on Thursday, May 2nd. The winner of the Election serves a four-year term.
The Labour Party’s Sadiq Khan is the current Mayor of London. He has been in the post since 2016.
The Mayor of London role was established in 2000. Khan is seeking to become the first Mayor to win a third term.
At odds of -4000 to win a record third term as London Mayor, there is no value in backing Sadiq Khan to win.
At those odds, you could be forgiven for thinking everybody loves Khan, but that couldn’t be further from the truth. Khan is deeply unpopular. But he is a Labour Mayor, and the current UK government is Conservative.
So, at the moment, it appears Khan is reaping the rewards for the unpopularity of the Conservatives, as opposed to him being popular himself.
Susan Who?
Also helping Khan’s case is the Conservative candidate Susan Hall. Susan who? You may ask. And that’s exactly the point.
Why the Conservatives didn’t look for a bigger name is a mystery.
In fact, the whole Conservatives campaign has been a shambles. When they announced Susan Hall as their candidate, they didn’t even use her picture on social media. Was there a motive for this? Or was it just bad campaign management?
It seems like a series of spectacular own goals from the party in an election that was there for the taking for them.
Donald Trump has previously traded verbal blows across the Atlantic with Sadiq Khan. Ask him who Susan Hall is, and we’re sure he’d for once be struggling for words.
2024 London Mayoral Betting
In the betting to win the 2024 London Mayoral Election, we already know that Sadiq Khan is a short favorite at -4000. If you are willing to bet against him, Susan Hall is +1100, Any Other Candidate is +3500, Zoe Garbett is +9000, and Rob Blackie is +10000.
Moving onto the futures betting we are looking at, and in Khan’s margin of victory betting, BetUS goes +125 on Khan’s winning margin being between 10% and 14.99%.
The second favorite in the betting is between 5% and 9.99% at +200, with between 15% and 19.99% at +400. The market that interests us is a winning margin between 0% and 4.99% at +800.
You can also get +1400 on Khan to lose. These odds are higher than Susan Hall’s odds to win of +1100. And realistically, only Hall is likely to prevent Khan from winning.
In October 2023, a YouGov Poll showed 50% of Londoners intended to vote for Khan, with only 25% supporting Hall. That would give him a winning margin of 25%. On April 17th, the same market research group had Khan at 46% and Hall at 27%. The gap was down to 19%
In a Savanta survey released on April 25th, the gap further shrunk. Khan is still sitting on 46%. But floating voters opposed to Khan seem to be switching allegiances from other candidates and throwing their support behind Hall, as the survey found 33% are now intending to vote for her.
As the betting shows, the bookmakers expect the gap to continue to close, making the 0% to 4.99% a viable option.
The least worst option
Khan is polling at 46%. Assuming the other 54% are anti-Khan, some may change allegiances on polling day and vote for Hall if they want to get Khan out.
We’ve seen this sort of thing before in politics on both sides of the Atlantic. In 2020, Joe Biden was regarded as the least worst option in the Presidential Elections. The same battle looks set to take place again this year, as reflected in the latest odds on the 2024 Presidential Election.
And this is likely to help Susan Hall on May 2nd. It’s probably not going to be enough to see her beat Khan. And it’s also a big ask for her to gain another 8% of the vote from the other candidates to get her to within 5% of Khan. But it does make this bet look like it could be good value.
Khan has been polling at around 45% to 50% for some months. These are only small snapshots of voting intentions. But it would be a shock if he were to lose. His support base looks solid. It would have to be put at around 40% at the very least, even if we allow for a bit of inaccuracy in the opinion polls.
Our betting picks
Shocks happen. And this election could well be one. We’re not against backing Susan Hall. But we’re also aware that the opinion polls are more often right than wrong, despite what you hear in the media.
Our strategy is to back Khan to win the election with a margin between 5% and 9.99% at +200. We expect plenty of anti-Khan voters to get behind Hall on voting day. We are also having a small wager on Khan’s winning margin to be less than 5% at +800. If the polls are wrong, we could well be in business.
Sadiq KhanTo win London Mayoral Election by 5% to 9.99%
Dean has been writing betting tips for websites now for over 15 years.
He started out writing and editing his own publications, but has now expanded to publishing articles on various well known websites where he covers everything from hot dog eating competitions to casino reviews.
Over the years Dean has learnt to adapt his skills. Using his extensive sports knowledge and his British sense of humor, Dean has developed into a trusted voice in the betting industry.