The BC election, in odds

A race's odds come from its market on VPX, where people trade with play money, and from a model built on the polls. The market leads: the closer together its best bid and offer, the more it counts, and the poll model makes up the rest.

A market is read at the midpoint of its best bid and offer. With those within 4 cents of each other it sets the odds on its own. From there its share falls, to a tenth once they are 30 cents apart. Past 10 cents the last trade is used in place of the midpoint, if it falls between them.

Every riding has a market for the NDP and one for the Conservatives, and one for the Greens or for anyone else where they are in the race. A party without a market takes the poll model's odds, fitted into what the others leave over. Until a riding's market has quotes, the poll model stands alone.

VPX makes markets in these races itself, quoting from its own blend of polls and other data, so that every race has a price. Anyone can trade against those quotes and move them.

A party with a majority also has the most seats, so its chance of a majority is its chance of the most seats times how often, by each source, the leading party goes on to a majority.

The poll model starts from each riding's 2024 result and moves it by how far the province-wide polling average has moved since. It then plays the election 20,000 times. Each time the polls miss by a different amount across the province (about 4 points on the margin between the two main parties, more this far from the vote), across each region (3 points) and in each riding (6.5 points). A party's chance in a riding is how often it won.

The model sees parties, not people. It does not know who is retiring, who crossed the floor or who is popular at home, which is what the markets are for. Ridings where a sitting MLA is running outside the three main parties carry a note.

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