General election 2017: Bookies prepare for Tory win

Bookmakers across the UK have thrown their collective weight behind the Tories in this general election, with all of them slashing odds on Theresa May remaining Prime Minister when the results come in overnight.

Although Labour support has surged in opinion polls, with YouGov predicting a hung parliament earlier this week, Jeremy Corbyn's party has fallen away on the final stretch, dropping three percentage points in the latest survey.

Betfair are currently offering a Conservative majority at 1/6, while a hung parliament is 9/2 and a Labour majority has lengthened to 18/1. Theresa May's party is also 1/25 to win the most seats, with Labour far behind at 12/1.

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The Liberal Democrats are 1000/1 to win the most seats, while Ukip and the Greens both sit at a distant 2000/1.

However, a Betfair spokeswoman warned not to completely discount Corbyn and his candidates yet.

"We have seen a slight move towards the Tories on our main markets in the last 24 hours, with their odds now shortening slightly," she said.

"However, 60 per cent of bets on the most seats market have been for Labour, showing there is still plenty of appetite to back them at their current odds.

"In recent political events like the US Election and Brexit we saw vast amounts of money bet in the final few days, despite the fact that both Remain and Hillary Clinton were heavy odds-on favourites.

"Punters were no doubt encouraged by the closeness indicated by the polls and the uncertainty around the result right down to the wire."

Here are the latest odds:

Party with the most number of seats

Party with an overall majority

General election 2017: The Week tracks the latest odds

2 June

Just six days before the general election, the narrowing of Theresa May's lead over Jeremy Corbyn is seeing the odds of a Conservative majority increase.

When the Prime Minister announced the snap election in late April, polling projections showed her holding a 24-point lead over the Labour leader with a landslide Conservative victory predicted by all betting companies.

Yet after a dramatic U-turn from the Tories over a controversial social care policy dubbed the 'dementia tax', along with refusal May's refusal to take part in televised debates with fellow party leaders and a surge in popularity for Corbyn, the odds of her sweeping to victory are beginning to lengthen.

The Conservative party's slipping lead has also seen almost all bookmakers lower the odds of no one party winning a majority on 8 June – known as a hung parliament.

On Betfair, a Conservative overall majority is still odds-on at 1/5, while just over one week ago it was 1/11. No overall majority now sits at 6/1 on the site, a dramatic change from 13/1 a week ago.

The Liberal Democrats and Ukip remain at 500/1 and 1000/1 retrospectively, while the Greens are on par with Ukip at 1000/1.

Betfair spokeswoman Katie Baylis said: "Theresa May called this election with the aim of increasing the size of the Tory majority, so to actually lose their majority would be a monumental disaster.

"While punters on the Exchange are still backing a majority, there is certainly not as much backing for that as there was just a week or so ago."