The Iowa Effect?

For the first time, Obama is now seen by the betting markets as the most likely Democratic nominee, and the most likely next President of the United States. If you believe otherwise, there's some good money to be made:

Clinton is not (too) far behind, but what an incredible reversal of fortunes this has been:

Betfair - very unhelpfully - does not label the x-axis, but the turning points shouldn't be too hard to guess.

Edwards, described by most commentators as also having a decent shot at the nomination, is in fact less than 3% likely to be given the Democratic crown. As for the rest of the Democratic pack, the betting markets have basically written them off. Next stop New Hampshire, with Obama having a 70% probability of winning and Clinton commanding most of the remaining 30%.

The Republican race is a multi-horse one, with McCain at the driving seat and slightly ahead of Giuliani. If you found Obama's graph impressive, take a look at this:

Notably, Giuliani is the favourite amongst his Republican colleagues in a different market, the one for predicting the next President.

Before leaving this post, thanks to those who emailed me following my failure to post anything for the past week - I've just been busy with less interesting stuff. Next week doesn't look like it will be much better, but I hope to have service return to normal by next Monday.