JAMAICA’S two leading betting companies have reported record wagers and tens of millions in payouts for the September 3 General Election, but the twist that stunned both punters and bookmakers was the upset defeat of the Jamaica Labour Party’s (JLP) Ann-Marie Vaz, on whom most win wagers were placed.

Island Bet CEO Adam Epstein revealed that, among the wagers, Vaz topped the chart as the most heavily backed Member of Parliament (MP) to win re-election. However, when the ballots were counted at the end of the polls, based on the preliminary count, she was the only one among the five most-bet-on MP candidates who fell — losing her Portland Eastern constituency to political newcomer Isat Buchanan of the People’s National Party. The final counting of ballots is continuing across the island.

“She [Vaz] came off at 1.5 odds and, before we closed, we only took three candidates off the board early, and she was one of them. Her last odds that were visible for her to bet on was 1.09,” Epstein told the Jamaica Observer.

He explained that the betting company had only placed seats they considered to be battlegrounds on the board. However, Vaz was taken off the board because the bets placed on her indicated that Portland Eastern was a safe seat, and there would be too much risk for the house if she had won.

In a turn of events, however, the preliminary count showed that the outgoing MP was defeated by Buchanan, who amassed 8,316 votes to Vaz’s 8,181 votes, which were 90 fewer than she’d polled in the 2020 General Election as a newcomer.

The Jamaica Progressive Party’s Tracy-Ann Gillespie-Harris, who polled 29 votes, also contested the seat.

“We were stunned, but from what I have seen, the people of Portland have spoken and they have chosen their candidate,” said Epstein.

Other favourites who lived up to the expectations of bettors included Floyd Green in St Elizabeth South Western, Dayton Campbell in Westmoreland Eastern, Dr Andrew Wheatley in St Catherine South Central, and Richard Azan in Clarendon North Western.

Meanwhile, Epstein noted that the person who placed the largest wager on the September 3 General Election stands to collect more than $7 million once all the results are finalised.

Supreme Ventures Gaming, through its JustBet brand, also saw unprecedented action on election night. Acting CEO Stefan Miller told the Sunday Observer that betting activity tripled compared to the 2020 General Election, with overall payouts climbing to as much as $15 million.

In Westmoreland Eastern, the PNP’s Campbell received 7,558 votes to unseat the incumbent Daniel Lawrence of the JLP, who attracted 5,624 votes — just over 750 more votes than he polled in the 2020 General Election to win the seat. In St Elizabeth South Western, Green secured victory with 9,705 votes — just over 500 more than he polled in the 2020 election — over PNP newcomer Miranda Wellington who amassed 8,462 votes.

The JLP’s Andrew Wheatley secured 7,630 votes to the PNP’s Kurt Matthews’ 2,905 to win the St Catherine South Central seat, while Richard Azan of the PNP edged out the JLP’s Warren Newby in Clarendon North Western, polling 6,989 votes to Newby’s 6,490. In his comeback to the helm of the constituency Azan pulled more than 1,000 additional votes than he had when he lost the seat to the JLP’s Phillip Henriques, who polled 6,075 votes, in the 2020 General Election.

In contrast, Epstein said bets on either the JLP or the PNP to win the election were “down the line equal”, with no one party having an edge on the other.

“I was not surprised to see that at all. I say that because, based on our numbers when we put the odds out, I knew this was going to be a very tight election. I thought there would be a few surprises, and I thought that no matter what there would have been no landslide of victory and the incoming Government would have won majority by a very slim margin. I do think JLP has won by a slim margin, and now it is up to them to show the country whether they are the better of the two,” he said.

According to the preliminary count, the JLP edged the PNP 34 seats to 29. As the final counting of the ballots continues across island the JLP on Friday picked up another seat — Kingston Central — bringing the new seat allocation to 35 in favour of the Dr Andrew Holness-led JLP and 28 for the Mark Golding-led PNP.

While wagers on which party would win were evenly split for punters using Island Bet, Miller noted that JustBet punters had the JLP as the clear favourite, both from the outset of accepting bets to when the books closed just before the general election.

“When we opened the market initially we saw a significant amount of bets going towards the JLP, and I suppose people were picking the safe option by doing that. Betting picked up in the last seven days before the elections, so if you look at the total amount of bets that we got overall, more than half of that came in the last seven days — and what we also saw in the last seven days was a tightening of the spread,” Miller explained.

“You saw more [people] now betting on the PNP to win within the last seven days. I suspect that would have been because of the publishing of the Don Anderson polls that came out in that last period… that showed the PNP doing a little better, so the betting pattern shifted a bit. That wide gap between the two parties in the initial stages would have closed a bit in the betting,” he said. “Ultimately, it ended around 60 to 40, where 60 per cent were betting on the JLP, 40 per cent on the PNP.”

Miller said customers were placing bets in excess of $1 million, with some going as high as $1.5 million. He said some customers also sought to place multiple bets in smaller quantities, amounting to $100,000 in some cases.

“Cumulatively, we would have paid out another $15 million for winners this time around, so that’s a significant chunk to our customers. We’re happy for that, of course, because at Supreme Ventures we make winners every day,” he told the Sunday Observer.

In the meantime, Island Bet’s Epstein said more than 2,000 wagers were placed on all three categories — the party that would win overall, the number of seats each party would win, and the battleground parliamentary seats.

While he did not state the amount, Epstein said the largest wager placed was a parlay bet on several Members of Parliament to win their seats. He said the wager has the potential to win approximately $7 million or more when the official count is completed.

“No results are official, and all bets will remain placed until the Electoral Office of Jamaica makes the results official, so I don’t know what the biggest payout is as yet. As you know, there are [possibly] several magisterial recounts to take place, and until that’s all said and done I’m not sure what the biggest payout will be — but there are several tickets that have the opportunity to win that are in the millions,” he said.

Epstein also doubled down on his claim that the betting books are a true poll, an argument he raised in an interview with the Sunday Observer before the general election.

“At the end of the day, all of our odds were spot on in terms of who would win the seats, the total seats at the end of the day being [JLP] 34 seats to [PNP] 29 seats, and the only one that was incorrect was Ann-Marie Vaz. I’ll say it again, that the best poll is determined by the market and people placing their bets on who they believe the outcome would be in [favour of],” said Epstein.

MILLER…cumulatively, we would have paid out another $15 million for winners this time around, so that’s a significant chunk to our customers

The largest wager placed at Island Bet is a parlay bet on several Members of Parliament to win their seat. The punter stands to collect more than $7 million once all results are finalised. (Photo: Naphtali Junior)

EPSTEIN…we were stunned, but from what I have seen, the people of Portland have spoken and they have chosen their candidate

VAZ… topped the chart as the most heavily backed Member of Parliament to win re-election