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Wednesday 09 September 2015 2:16 pm

Labour leadership odds 2015: When did it start to look like Jeremy Corbyn might win?

By: James Nickerson

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It feels like the Labour leadership campaign has been going on for eons. But here we are, at the final hurdle. It’s now just three days until the result is announced.

During General Election a few months ago, it was said bookies outperformed pollsters when it came to predicting the result – with many polls predicting a hung parliament.

Read more: Can geography tell us if Labour is being infiltrated?

So City PM teamed up with Betway to look at how the odds of candidates have changed over time – a direct way to measure who people are backing when it matters: with hard-earned cash.

Here's how much you'd have won on a £1 bet on each candidate over time. We've taken out Liz Kendall because her odds shot up so high – to 200/1 at one point – that her inclusion would make the other candidates' odds look the same. The closer candidates get towards Evens at the top, the more likely it is they'll win, and vice versa.

Looking specifically at Liz Kendall, her chances of winning go from strong, to bad, to worse. Compare her axis for return on a £1 bet, which goes to £200 in the time period, to the above, where the longest odds are 16/1.

It’s probably long forgotten now that Jeremy Corbyn didn't even have enough MPs backing him to enter the race – causing Andy Burnham to “transfer” his support so that he could compete. Or that he entered at odds of 66/1.

Read more: Jeremy Corbyn's tweets ahead in the social media stakes – but not enough to win outright

But Corbyn is still the man to beat. And if the bookies are right, next Wednesday we’ll be able to watch Corbyn go head-to-head with Cameron at his first Prime Minister's Questions. A sight to behold…

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