How to make £10,000 by this time tomorrow

Got a spare million? Want to make a quick £10,000 by this time tomorrow? Betfair.com, which describes itself as ‘the world’s biggest betting community’ with 15 million bets placed daily, is offering odds of 1/100 on David Davis winning the Haltemprice and Howden by-election. Since Davis is as near as you get to a dead cert winner (in fact he’d still win if he was dead), that’s got to be worth a flutter. It’s certainly better than the miserable 14/1 that Paddy Power quoted on a Green Party victory, which is about as likely as Port Vale winning the 2009 FA Cup, for which SkyBet is currently offering 3000/1.

Note to the kind of people who are taken in by ‘get-rich-quick’ email scams, chain letters and that sort of thing: There is a catch to this scheme. First, you need a million quid to bet with. And second, Betfair uses a ‘matching-bet’ system, which means you’d only win the full whack if enough people bet against Davis winning. Still, the world is full of fools, so who knows, your luck could be in.