A General Election is widely expected to take place in the UK in 2024.
While it is possible that we could face early elections in 2023 or that the government could hold out for a Christmas campaign and a January 2025 election (and there are options for this in the market), this is seen as pretty unlikely.
Which month will it be?
Resolution criteria:
This market applies to the main voting day regardless of early voting or anything like that
This market will resolve to the next General Election, so there won't be a split resolution if there are two GEs in the year (like there were in 1974)
The market will resolve once parliament is dissolved. This is the point at which the general election date is set in stone. In the very unlikely event that the election is delayed (eg. because the King dies or there is some sort of terrorist attack), the market will not be re-resolved.
It is, occasionally, fun to do a postmortem of sorts when you have success in a market. In this case, I was not only able to make a large profit, I was able to almost guarantee myself a profit no matter what outcome, simply by resolutely buying options when they were unfashionable. There were various cycles where a month went up and down and generally I think bettors were too keen to buy up the favourite.
Parliament has been dissolved - this market resolves to JULY!
I've really enjoyed this market and the frenzied speculation about October, November and May... Only to see the market confirm that Sunak's announcement really was a shock to everyone as it turned out to be the dark horse of 4% July!
Here are some general election markets you might be interested in:
/SimonGrayson/uk-general-election-which-party-wil-35d0bc6a20f9
/SimonGrayson/will-the-conservative-party-win-few
/SimonGrayson/uk-general-election-2024-how-many-s-qzm55nj4xt
/SimonGrayson/uk-general-election-2024-how-many-t
And a few more niche ones:
/SimonGrayson/uk-general-election-2024-will-diane
/SimonGrayson/uk-general-election-2024-will-refor
/SimonGrayson/uk-general-election-2024-will-the-l-f9oz2y28df
/SimonGrayson/uk-general-election-2024-will-the-l
/SimonGrayson/uk-general-election-2024-will-there
/SimonGrayson/uk-general-election-2024-will-there-yk246fcxcw
Hasn't parliament been dissolved now? https://www.lemonde.fr/en/europe/article/2024/05/30/uk-parliament-dissolves-in-anticipation-of-july-election_6673085_143.html
Rishi Sunak has announced that the election will take place on 4th July.
A reminder that this market resolves once Parliament is dissolved. In the incredibly unlikely event that something delays or prevents that, the date of the election could change.
If Parliament is dissolved, this market resolves and any further changes of date will not apply to this market.
I'm hearing from two decent sources that there will be an announcement to the press from the PM at 5pm today in Downing Street.
Some are making the argument that this is just an incoming reshuffle, in which case a hedge would be to bet on Will any UK cabinet member leave cabinet this month?
TBH I think that even if it is "just" a reshuffle, it's a reshuffle in advance of calling an election. I don't buy a reshuffle now for an election six months away.
@Noit That makes sense.
I’m usually really dubious about rumours like this, but I’m surprised that no one in government has come out to squash the rumours yet!
Absolutely huge moves on this market today with July going from 4% to 63% and then settling at around 40%.
This is off the back of rumours that Rishi Sunak is planning to call a general election today (meaning that 4th July would be the most likely date).
Is there any truth to these rumours? /SimonGrayson/will-rishi-sunak-announce-general-e
Ministers have been told to attend cabinet at 4pm on pain of death. They have not been told what they will be discussing
Sunak's refusing to rule out a July election...
Could we see some exciting market movement in the next few days?
@BonjTwo It's never exactly zero on manifold - we only get one decimal place. So yeah, the odds of the election already having happened are much less than 0.1%