Will the Commonwealth Games boost the YES indyref vote?

The latest Independence Referendum polls have been fairly steady. In terms of the betting markets, not much has changed either, but I think we are definitely seeing an increase in money for YES. A customer in one of our shops in Edinburgh had £2,500 at 9/2 today and we’ve seen plenty of smaller bets over the weekend as well. NO backers have been harder to find recently.

Is this the Commonwealth Games effect? I think it might well be. We haven’t had any polls with fieldwork since the games started yet, but I wouldn’t be surprised if there was a modest uptick in the YES numbers in forthcoming surveys.

Normally, I don’t think you’d expect the effect of such an event to be very big, or long lived. On the other hand, if it were followed by a debate win for Salmond v Darling on August 5th, perhaps we could start to see some real movement. It would certainly be interesting if one of the pollsters produced a lead for independence – I could imagine there being a huge betting move towards YES. After all, as John Curtice reports, 56% of YES supporters already believe they are going to win, even though current polling wouldn’t give them much cause for that optimism.

Although a NO vote would be more profitable outcome for Ladbrokes at the moment, we’re hoping that the polls get a bit closer, as that is bound to stimulate turnover. This has already been a huge betting heat, and could break all sorts of records if the result is in doubt going into the final weeks. Personally, I’ve had a little bit of money on YES today, as I think there is a lot of scope for the odds to shorten in the next week or two.