Back Your Candidate

A call to arms and an overlooked weapon in our arsenal

In the run up to the referendums a few weeks ago, a niche but popular website/channel on Telegram called Freepress.ie began to highlight the bookies odds in regards to the outcome of the vote. This small effort to highlight the fact that odds were narrowing, and that we could further narrow those odds by simply placing bets ourselves was mind blowing. I understood the significance immediately. The ramifications of taking bets on voter opinion are, well, exciting and blatantly biased in the punters favour. A small concerted campaign of placing numerous, small, inconsequential bets on a favoured candidate would have a huge effect on the odds for many reasons, one of which is the fact that we choose the winner.

In normal betting conditions, the stake is placed on the outcome of some event, typically a sport. This outcome contains two key elements, skill/ability and randomness/probability. The outcome is not predetermined and therefore never guaranteed. For instance, no matter how many bets are placed on a football match the outcome is unaffected no matter how many bets are placed on them to win, the outcome is unaffected. With political betting, because the outcome us decided by the punter, the chances of a win are exponentially increased by the amount of bets placed due to the fact that every bet placed is effectively translates to another vote ( or perhaps multiple votes) cast. The ability of the punter to directly alter the outcome usually makes political betting illegal in most territories or heavily regulated. We have an open window here to pass our candidates through the gauntlet of public opinion.

This recursive effect happens firstly through the bookies who will narrow the odds as more bets are placed. Secondly, as the odds narrow public perception changes. The follow-the-crowd vote, the lazy people who want to be told who to vote for, will adopt such a candidate into their preference pool. If even a small percentage of this group of people can be convinced to also cast a bet on a candidate, it creates a feedback loop of positive opinion change. This will have a very direct effect on the outcome of the election if we can achieve the right amount of public support for such an initiative. I estimate that we only need a small core group of people to place a tenner bet on a candidate to win a seat in the EU election, let’s say on our very own John Waters, to begin the narrowing of the odds. If 5000 bets in total were placed on EU elections in Ireland I would be surprised. With three voter areas, this figure is reduced to 1,650 or so. With 16 candidates running in John’s district Midlands-North West, this leaves 100 bets per head from the population organically. Ridiculously within our reach to affect a massive change in. This is warfare people, in this, betfare.

With our reach, all of us with a platform, with a large family or friend group, can engage with the movement to back John waters with lets say a 10 euro bet. 100 of our bets theoretically could halve his odds in this respect from the current 33/1 down to 16/1. To be honest, I believe 20 of such bets could do that an even more due to the fact these bets are not being taken up by the wider population as of yet and I have that on good authority. Further to this, the demographic of gamblers is overwhelmingly right wing, libertarian or conservative. Our people are the ones who engage in this industry. A campaign from us in our circles has a real chance of gaining traction. A candidate such as John Waters in a post-woke election cycle has a real chance at the polls but could risk being forgotten if we do not put him in the spotlight and grease the wheels with tactics such as this. We need to empower non participative persons, who came out in March and voted woke down, to come out again for Candidates like John Waters. As a stand alone candidate on his own merits, Waters is as qualified and as capable as it gets. He possesses all of the traits our Nation holds dear in a man. But politics is not a meritocracy. It is contest of participation and popularity therefore we must participate.

Here is my bet on John Waters. I am calling on you the reader to part with a tenner, the price of a pint (In a certain place in Dublin). I am not giving you a tip, I am asking you to tip the scales of opinion in John Waters’ favour by showing the bookies and pollsters that he has support in this country. Put a tenner on Johns name, or more if you can, and force John into the mix for this election where he belongs.

Place the online here: https://www.boylesports.com/sports/politics or in a Boyle Sports near you.

Don’t forget:

• Post your bet slip/screenshot to your social media with the hashtag #BackYourCandidate

• Tag your candidate in the post and challenge your peers to do the same.

• Do it multiple times, badger other humans to do the same. I am placing this bet, every Thursday until the election is over.
  

Lets mobilise.