Ray Jay wrote:Since GOP at 52, 53, and 54 are taken, I'm going to go with:

GOP 51
Dem 49

That'll be a nailbiter.

Blues 50, Reds 50...

Based on no kind of analysis of the polling whatsoever I'm going to go the other way and predict that the Dems will hold onto the Senate by a wafer thin margin. I have no reason for this, but it'll be fun to be unexpectedly proven right, and all of the apparently more likely options appear to be taken.

Based on no kind of analysis of the polling whatsoever I'm going to go the other way and predict that the Dems will hold onto the Senate by a wafer thin margin. I have no reason for this, but it'll be fun to be unexpectedly proven right, and all of the apparently more likely options appear to be taken.

Or as Dr. Malcolm of Jurassic Park fame would say: "God, I hate being right all the time."

Actually, I'm rather impressed at the interest expressed in our politics around the globe. I have run into no less than two distinct British-based online bookies whose betting pools include American politics, especially the 2014 midterms (bets for House & Senate party majority, number of seats in the Senate, even presidential nominees for 2016...and more)

I assume that if this were the late 19th century I would be very knowledgeable about British politics (Winston Churchill.....Margaret Thatcher.....................somebody or the other).In other words, people around the globe are interested in American politics because the results could affect them in some way. It's not like our politics are otherwise that interesting...

Margaret Thatcher wasn't even a glimmer in her grandfather's eye back in the late 19th Century...

In truth most people over here are not really all that interested. We pay attention when Presidential elections are happening or when there are stories about crazy Republican nutjobs doing bonkers things, but the average Brit would struggle to name more than 2 or 3 American politicians. Dan and myself are hardly typical.

Britian is pretty much the world capital of gambling btw. We'll bet on anything and there are dozens of online bookies all ferociously competing with each other (they dominate the TV advertising markets these days). You're a lot more uptight about gambling in the States and your laws are much stricter, so it may seem strange to you that there are unconventional betting markets available here.

Nah, maybe Gladstone or Disraeli? If I didn't know that Thatcher was roughly a contemporary of Reagan (as far as leading their respective countries) then Brad would be justified in banning me from posting...

freeman3 wrote:Nah, maybe Gladstone or Disraeli? If I didn't know that Thatcher was roughly a contemporary of Reagan (as far as leading their respective countries) then Brad would be justified in banning me from posting...

If Brad ever banned people for error, everybody would have posts banned. (myself included!)

If I didn't know that Thatcher was roughly a contemporary of Reagan (as far as leading their respective countries)

You'd probably impress most Britons by knowing Gladstone or Disreali (from what I am told, and from what I know of some of my fellow, and not always worldly, Americans I know. Yes, a contemporary of Reagan and H.W. Bush-- May 1979 to November 1990 (so she was still in for a while longer when Iraq invaded Kuwait).

(A phun phact: shortly after Britain failed to suppress our revolution, they appointed a prime minister at the tender age of 24, Pitt the Younger. Blackadder made particular fun of this when he asked Pitt which of his relatives he would run for MP in a rotten borough: "Pitt the Toddler? Pitt the Embryo? Pitt the Gleam in the Milkman's Eye?")

I just mention that off hand....but in all seriousness, it's still impressive what people know of us abroad. An Aussie I befriended stated that more Aussies know that George Washington was the first President of the United States, than know Edmund Barton was first Prime Minister of the Commonwealth of Australia.

Britian is pretty much the world capital of gambling btw. We'll bet on anything and there are dozens of online bookies all ferociously competing with each other (they dominate the TV advertising markets these days). You're a lot more uptight about gambling in the States and your laws are much stricter, so it may seem strange to you that there are unconventional betting markets available here.

In the James Bond novel Thunderball the author stated that, at the time (1959?) the Casino in Nassau in the Bahamas (still a colony until the late 1960's I think) was the only legal casino in the entire British Empire. Is that correct?

I very much doubt it. There are casinos in London that have been around since Victoria was on the throne (they'd have been gentleman's clubs back then of course).

According to this Wikipedia article, the first "legal" casino in Britain was opened in 1961.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gambling_i ... ed_Kingdom

So maybe Mr. Fleming was right, who knows.

The real question is why I am looking up sports betting history in Britain...

Sassenach wrote:Britian is pretty much the world capital of gambling btw. We'll bet on anything and there are dozens of online bookies all ferociously competing with each other (they dominate the TV advertising markets these days).

Based on spending (ie: losses), we aren't even in the top 10: http://www.cnbc.com/id/43628943/page/1

1. Australia
2. Singapore
3. Ireland
4. Canada
5. Finland
6. Italy
7. Hong Kong
8. Norway
9. Greece
10. Spain

American politics is interesting in that you never can tell what craziness will come up next. But not in the overall outcome.

The interesting trend is in the number of independent Senators. There could be three who were elected as such. Sanders and King will stick with the Democrats as a caucus, but Orman has said he would sit with whichever was stronger. If it ends up R50,D47(+2) and him, he gets to decide whether to have Biden as the tie-breaker and keep the Democrats in control, or to give the Republicans the Senate.

Any idea what date those figures are taken from ? I couldn't see anything listed on your link but looking around I have seen the same list repeated elsewhere and it seems to be drawn from a chart compiled in 2010. There's been an explosion in online sports betting in the UK since then so I suspect we'll have crept a little higher up the list. Also, since it's a per capita there's the potential in some cases for the figures to be a little skewed. A couple of big casinos in a small place like Singapore will have a disproportionate impact on the figures. I'm surprised places like Macau and Monaco aren't there actually.

danivon wrote:. . . Orman has said he would sit with whichever was stronger. If it ends up R50,D47(+2) and him, he gets to decide whether to have Biden as the tie-breaker and keep the Democrats in control, or to give the Republicans the Senate.

He's a Democrat. Let's be real.