There is still a week to go till the election result, but in the betting world the winner is clear cut: Labour.
Labour was clearly the favourite with odds of around 11/8
Up until Friday morning, the online betting site interwetten.com was taking bets for “Maltese Parliamentary elections”.
Labour was clearly the favourite with odds of around 11/8 on a PL victory while the return is better on a Nationalist win at 3/1.
By Friday afternoon, the site had stopped taking bets on the Maltese election and most of the other online betting sites contacted by The Times said they were not offering odds on local elections.
Illegal betting – rife in Hamrun, Marsa, Fgura, Msida, and Valletta – is also predicting a Labour victory on March 9.
An investigation by The Sunday Times revealed that in head-to-head betting (ras’imbras), odds being offered on a PL victory are around 5/4 while a PN victory is 4/1.
Although the PL are hot favourites, people are holding back from betting on a landslide. Very few are risking predicting a win of more than 10,000 votes. “People are scared because the PN have a habit or recovering at the very last minute,” said a source who preferred to remain anonymous.
At one point, such was the reluctance to take a risk that the underworld betting market was at a standstill.
The betting standings reflect the opinion polls which throughout the election campaign have shown a consistent Labour lead – despite PL’s Joseph Muscat describing his party as “the underdog”. Nonetheless, the illegal market was also rife with hearsay from soothsayers.
The Times contacted Yoda, one of Malta’s most popular fortune-tellers; however, she would not reveal what she saw in her crystal ball.
“I only tell people whom I really love and trust,” she said. “Others just blab and misquote me and stir up trouble.”
She appealed to people to vote with their conscience. “When we vote we have to vote with the interest of the country in mind. God willing, whoever is elected will bring prosperity to the whole country – that’s the most important thing,” she said.
Elections and soothsayers in Malta seem to go hand in hand. In 1998 rumours were rife that Ġuza tal-Girgenti, who claimed to have had visions of Our Lady and was described by many as “a holy woman”, had predicted the 1996 Labour win and also that the PL would remain in power for only two years.
Maurice Zammit, known as Malta’s Nostradamus, in his book entitled The Secret of Nostradamus revealed by Maurice Zammit has also hinted at the PL win and the subsequent defeat after 22 months.