It will be a two-horse race as centrist candidate, Emmanuelle Macron, and Marine Le Pen, leader of the far-right, National Front, will face each other in a runoff on May 7th. Voter turnout in France was near all-time highs. French citizens came out in droves for the Presidential election, with 79 percent of eligible voters casting a vote.
Macron is a former investment banker with no mainstream political party backing him. He is moderate, but decisively more pro-European than La Pen. Macron is a former member of the Socialist Party, but he became an independent politician back in 2009. At 39 years old, he would be France’s youngest president if were to win the election.
Marine Le Pen: The Populist
Marine Le Pen set a new record for the National Front, getting close to 7 million votes in the first round of voting. Marie has taken the party that her father founded and brought it to the national stage. She rose through the ranks of the party and became its leader in 2011.
Le Pen has drawn comparisons to Donald Trump and would likely push to pull France out of the European Union. She is anti-mass immigration and has vowed that she would give Julian Assange and Edward Snowden asylum in France if she were to win.
Betting Odds
Macron and Le Pen move on, but most bookmakers have Macron has the heavy favorite of Le Pen. Macron finished with 24 percent of the vote on Sunday, with Le Pen garnering 21.3 percent. However, most bookies have Macron as a substantial favorite over Le Pen.
At most bookmakers, Macron is a rather large -800 favorite (1/8 in fractional odds). Le Pen has long odds despite only a few percentage point difference in the first round of votes. She’s +500 (5/1) at most betting sites to be the next leader of France.
Brexit, Trump… Le Pen?
Many thought Geert Wilders would win the Dutch Election last month, carrying on the theme of populist candidates or referendums after the U.K. decided to leave the European Union and Donald Trump’s Presidential victory.
Wilders ending up losing, but his party still has a lot of clout in Dutch politics. The oddsmakers infamously got the Brexit vote wrong, and also had Hillary Clinton as a significant favorite over Donald Trump.
Political betting markets have certainly been inefficient in recent years, but it’s worth mentioning that Le Pen has a much tougher deficit to make up compared to Trump. Macron is leading by 26 percentage points.
The oddsmakers haven’t been their best with political markets in the past year, but it looks like they have this one pegged correctly.
Joe is the author of the majority of sports betting pages on SBS and he serves as a gambling consultant to our content team. He's been mentioned on Forbes.com as a gaming analyst, and his articles have been linked by larger publications, such as the New York Times.
