Betfair special markets cover politics (elections, leadership races, referendums), entertainment (awards, reality TV) and novelty events. They settle over weeks or months, move on news and polls rather than live play, and often carry slower, lumpier liquidity. Trade them as position trades: research an edge, take a price, and trade out on news — don’t scalp them like sport.
This page contains affiliate links — if you open an account through them we may earn a commission at no cost to you. It never changes our verdict.
This is a sub of our Betfair markets guide, and it covers the corner of the Exchange that looks least like a sportsbook: elections, leadership races, the Oscars, reality TV finales and the long tail of novelty markets. They are fascinating to trade and genuinely different in mechanics from a race or a match — and that difference is exactly why so many sport traders lose money the first time they wander in.
What the special markets cover
Betfair’s specials fall into three broad families. Politics is the biggest: general elections, individual constituency or seat markets, party-leadership contests, referendums, and the marquee event of them all, US presidential races, which pull enormous global money. Entertainment covers award shows such as the Oscars and the major film and television ceremonies, plus reality-TV and talent-show winner markets that run across a season. Novelty is everything else topical — anything Betfair judges there is demand and a verifiable outcome for. The full landscape is mapped in every Betfair market explained, but the principles below apply across all of them. Availability differs by country, so what you can trade depends on your jurisdiction.
How they differ from sport
The defining difference is time. A horse race settles in minutes; a special can stay open for months. That single fact changes everything about how you trade. There is no clock forcing the outcome, so prices can sit almost static for days and then gap violently on a poll, a debate, a scandal or a precursor result. You are not trading a developing contest in real time — you are holding a position and trading the news flow around it. That makes specials a swing and position-trading game, not a scalping one. Anyone who tries to trade an election market like a pre-race favourite will spend weeks watching a flat price and then get blindsided by an overnight move.
The second difference is the information edge. In an efficient horse-racing market your edge is reading money flow faster than the next trader. In a political or entertainment market your edge is more often knowing more — following the polling methodology, the precursor award results, the voting body, the on-the-ground reporting — than the crowd has priced in. Research beats reflexes here.
Liquidity, spreads and settlement
Liquidity in specials is lumpy and event-driven. A major election can match millions and trade with spreads as tight as any football match, but a minor leadership market or a niche entertainment proposition might have only a few hundred pounds available and a wide spread that makes getting in and out expensive. Always check market depth before committing size, because being unable to exit a large position in a thin special is a real and recurring problem. Settlement is the other practical wrinkle: your capital is locked until the real-world event resolves, so money you commit to an autumn election in spring is unavailable until polling day. And when news breaks, markets can be suspended while Betfair assesses an outcome, so you cannot always trade exactly when you most want to.
Trading politics and elections
Political markets reward genuine homework. The traders who do well follow polling aggregates and understand their margins of error, read the constituency-level or state-level detail rather than the national headline, and know the calendar of debates, conventions and set-piece events that move prices. The classic political trade is to take a position on a candidate or outcome you believe the market has mispriced relative to the polling and the fundamentals, then trade out as news confirms your view — greening up after a strong debate or a favourable poll rather than holding all the way to a binary result. Holding to settlement turns a trade into a bet, and elections produce enough genuine surprises that carrying full exposure to the result is high-variance. Note too that these markets are more surprise-prone than sport: priced-up favourites lose elections with uncomfortable regularity, which is both the risk and, for the well-informed contrarian, the opportunity.
Trading entertainment and awards
Entertainment markets split into two types. Award markets — the Oscars and the major ceremonies — are surprisingly tradeable for those who follow the precursor awards, because the guild and critics’ awards that precede the big ceremony are strong predictors, and the market often takes time to fully reprice after a precursor result drops. Get the news first, or interpret it better, and there is an edge. Reality and talent-show markets reward actually watching: audience sentiment, edit favouritism and momentum within a series move the winner price week to week, and a trader who follows the show closely reads those shifts before the casual market does. The detail of these is covered in Oscars and reality TV markets. The common thread with politics is that the edge is informational and the holding period is long.
Where the edges actually are
Across all specials, three edges recur. The first is reacting to news faster or better than the market — a poll, a precursor award, a withdrawal — because thinner markets reprice more slowly than efficient sport. The second is contrarian value on overbet favourites, since the crowd consistently overprices the obvious outcome in markets that surprise more than sport does. The third is simply superior research: in a market where knowing more is the edge, the trader who reads the methodology, follows the right sources and understands the mechanism of the contest has a durable advantage that no amount of fast clicking replicates. What these markets do not reward is the scalper’s toolkit — there is no tick-by-tick grind to be had in a market that moves twice a week.
The situation: a general election with a deep Betfair market — well over £5,000,000 matched across the outright. The favourite party was trading around 1.25 to win most seats going into election night, with the result market highly liquid.
The read: I was not trying to predict the result — I was positioning to trade the volatility of the night itself. Early declarations and exit-poll reaction reliably swing these markets hard before the picture settles, and 1.25 left room to back the favourite and trade out if early results came in strong.
The trade: I backed the favourite for £200 at 1.25 shortly before the exit poll. The exit poll landed in line with the favourite and the price shortened immediately; as the first declarations confirmed the trend, it traded down to 1.08. I layed £231 at 1.08 to green the book.
The result: backed £200 at 1.25 (potential £50), layed £231 at 1.08 (liability £18.50) — locking roughly £31 profit before commission regardless of the final declared result, with the position closed within a couple of hours of the exit poll rather than held to the full count.
The lesson: the edge was not knowing who would win — the market already had that roughly right. It was trading the predictable volatility of election night and greening up on the move, instead of carrying full result-exposure through a long, surprise-prone count. Even in specials, you trade the movement and take the money off the table.
The specific risks
Specials carry risks sport does not. Capital lock-up: money is committed until settlement, sometimes for months, so it cannot work elsewhere. Surprise results: these markets upset favourites far more than efficient sport, so result-exposure is genuinely risky. Thin-market exit risk: in a small market you may be unable to trade out of a large position at a fair price when you need to. Settlement and rules ambiguity: novelty markets occasionally hinge on a definition or a disputed outcome, so read the market rules before you trade — the basis of settlement on a politics or entertainment market is not always as obvious as “who crossed the line first”. None of these should stop you trading specials, but they should shape your staking and your decision to trade out rather than hold.
Reading the market rules before you trade
The single most overlooked discipline in special markets is reading the specific market rules before placing a penny, and it matters far more here than in sport. A horse race settles on an unambiguous result; a political or entertainment market often hinges on a definition that is not obvious from the market name. What exactly counts as “winning” a leadership contest if the rules change mid-process? How is an award market settled if a ceremony is postponed, a category is altered, or a nominee withdraws? Does a “next manager” or “next leader” market settle on the permanent appointment or an interim one? These are not edge cases — they are exactly the situations that produce disputed settlements and traders who feel cheated because they assumed rather than read.
Before I take a position in any special I read Betfair’s rules tab for that specific market and note the settlement basis, the void conditions, and what happens to the market if the real-world event is delayed or changed. This is doubly important because specials run for so long that the underlying situation can mutate while your money is committed — a candidate drops out, a format changes, a ceremony moves. Knowing in advance how the market handles those events is the difference between a calm trade-out and an ugly surprise. It also occasionally reveals an edge: when the crowd is trading on a loose interpretation of the market name and the actual rules settle on something narrower or broader, the well-read trader is positioned correctly while the lazy money is not. In markets where information is the edge, the market rules are part of the information — and they are sitting there, free, in a tab almost nobody opens.
Approached this way — research-led, rules-aware, traded as positions rather than scalped — specials become a genuinely rewarding part of a trader’s portfolio precisely because so few people trade them well. The crowd brings opinion and impatience; the disciplined trader brings homework, a read of the rules, and the discipline to trade out on news rather than gamble on a months-away result. That gap is the edge, and it is wider here than in almost any sport market.
The verdict
Betfair’s special markets are a research-led, patient corner of the Exchange that rewards information and discipline over speed. Trade them as position trades: do the homework, take a price you have good reason to believe is wrong, trade out on the news that confirms your view, and respect the long settlement and the surprise risk by sizing for a hold and greening up rather than gambling on the result. Get that mindset right and politics and entertainment can be among the most rewarding markets on Betfair; bring a scalper’s impatience and they will simply tie up your money and pick your pocket on a headline.
FAQ
What special markets does Betfair offer?
Betfair runs markets on politics (general elections, leadership contests, referendums, US presidential races), entertainment (award shows like the Oscars, reality TV winners, talent shows) and assorted novelty events. Availability varies by jurisdiction and by what is topical, and the biggest events — major elections especially — can attract very large matched volumes.
How is trading politics different from trading sport?
Politics settles over weeks or months rather than minutes, and moves on news, polls and events rather than live play. There is no clock forcing resolution, liquidity is lumpier, and prices can sit still for days then gap on a single headline. It rewards research, patience and position trading far more than the fast reactions that sport trading demands.
Can you make money on Betfair entertainment markets?
Yes, but the edge comes from information and analysis, not speed. Award markets reward those who follow precursor results, voting bodies and industry sentiment; reality TV rewards those who actually watch and read the audience. The risk is that these markets are thinner and more surprise-prone than sport, so favourites lose more often than newcomers expect.
Why does my money get tied up in special markets?
Because the market does not settle until the real-world event resolves — an election day, an awards ceremony, a series finale. Until then your matched bets and any unmatched liability sit in the market, so capital committed to a special in January may not be freed until the event months later. Plan your bankroll around that lock-up.
Are Betfair special markets efficient?
Less so than top sport markets. Major elections attract enough money to be reasonably efficient, but smaller political and entertainment markets can be thin and slow to react to news, which is exactly where a well-informed trader finds value. The trade-off is wider spreads and the risk of being unable to exit a large position cleanly.
How far in advance should you trade a special market?
It depends on your edge. If your value comes from a view the market has not yet priced — a polling read, a precursor-award signal — taking the position early captures the move when news confirms it. But early entry ties up capital for longer and exposes you to more event risk along the way. A common compromise is to take a core position early on strong research and add or trade around it as set-piece events approach and liquidity deepens.
Related reading
This is part of our Betfair markets guide. For the entertainment side in detail see Oscars and reality TV markets, and for the full catalogue read every Betfair market explained. Compare prediction-market mechanics in Betfair vs Polymarket, understand the basic two-way price in match-odds explained, learn what happens when trading stops in market suspension, and build core skills in how to read a Betfair market and swing trading.
Special markets can stay open for months and move violently on a single headline or poll, and your capital is tied up the whole time. They are also more prone to surprise results than efficient sport markets — favourites lose elections and awards regularly. Most Betfair traders lose overall. Treat these as research-led position trades, size for a long hold, and never stake money you need before settlement. Past results don't guarantee future returns. 18+ only; help at BeGambleAware.org.
Treat specials as position trades: do the research, take a price you believe is wrong, and trade out on the news — don’t scalp a market that settles in three months.
Betfair Markets Guide Open Betfair Account →