It's a pillar of betting that in order to be successful you need to find a way of going against the crowd, albeit 90% of the time that probably means 'no bet' in these markets. My own suspicion is that you need to look for societal nuance and issues that you think are likely frame campaigns and then try and forecast from this. I also think it helps if you're able to plug into human nature.
The other thing that effects a price is group conformity. Commentators report the snap shot on any given day, and pundits are reluctant to isolate themselves by making outlying predictions for fear of losing their credibility, or jobs! The consequence is that the herd also form prices based on opinion polls
To make money therefore you have to have the balls to go against the flow and risk ridicule in pursuit of a price (unless you're prepared to indulge huge stakes on short prices). Lets not forget though that we've seen both Corbyn and Trump make mockeries of opening shows of 100/1 in the last 6 months. Opportunities exist because 'favourites' are nearly always put up as unaminous opinion. Very little dissenting comment appears and therefore impacts on the other runners
Clearly one of the best weapons the punter has are back and lay arbs. I think that at the moment there is an opportunity for a Republican moderate to emerge from Bush, Rubio, Kasich, and Christie
Rubio is the bookies favourite of this gaggle, but I'm not completely convinced. I suspect that campaign funds might be decisive here. I'd be inclined to try an investigate how much money Rubio has compared to Jeb (I don't know?).
Candidates withdraw when they decide that their objectives have been met and that they can no longer continue productively. They don't always withdraw the moment they realise they can't win. Some will stay in to try and gain leverage. To understand how the price might move therefore it can be very informative to work out the sequence in which they'll pull out, and equally importantly, how their displaced support will then migrate. There is a relationship between the two dynamics of course. Migrating support from X to Y can alter the sequence in which Z withdraws.
Long term does Rubio want to risk a series of public defeats? There's also the spectre of Florida looming. Will Rubio want to risk being defeated in his home state? I don't know. You could say the same about Jeb, but he's probably committed to this cycle. Rubio is young enough to draw stumps and have another go in 2020
There's a bit of me that wouldn't rule out Kasich shortening yet. So far as I can work out he has the best track record, and ticks both Ohio and Pennsylvania which the Republicans will need to carry. If the more thoughtful primary voters start to examine this kind of thing strategically, rather than those who are charged with emotion and personality influences, he could spring from the moderate camp yet. There's little reason to think he's going to be able to win the nomination, but he might have the capacity to match Jeb's price which is currently about 10/1 whereas kasich is 40's. I'm not sure he has the resources to stay in the race though? Having noted this, he becomes a potential asset to any ticket bringing currency from both these two swing states. Another reason why he might try and stay in the race. I'd be curious to know if he has any sort of relationship with Trump? On paper he'd be a strong running mate (8/1)
I expect Fiorina and Christie to be among the early casualties
I'm also wondering how much longer Carson can continue? He's very much a third player behind Trump and Cruz on the right wing. The polling evidence to date seems to suggest that Carson support switches to Cruz more than Trump on a ratio of 2:1
