Andrew Leigh, an academic economist who is now a federal Labor MP is an avid advocate of this line of thinking.

In his book The Luck of Politics, Dr Leigh says the betting markets' predictive accuracy has been proven time and time again.

"Every time, betting markets have been found to perform at least as well, and usually better than, the polls," he says.

"Another advantage of betting markets is that they cover a wide range of markets and are updated immediately.

"Recent Australian elections have seen election betting markets on the headline result, individual electoral results, the election date and leadership contenders.

"Like share prices, betting odds are in real time, so if a sudden event takes place, the response is immediate." 

A Daily Liberal Poll of 300 readers says the state election result in the Dubbo electorate could be a close call.

But, the bookies say the Nationals Dugald Saunders is a shoo-in and will win in a landslide.

As Dr Leigh says, The bookies are hardly ever wrong.

Our poll has Dugald Saunders at 29.41 per cent of the primary vote, followed by Labor's Stephen Lawrence at 28.76 per cent, then Independent candidate Mathew Dickerson at 27.78 per cent.

If our poll is accurate, then preferences would decide who becomes the next Member for Dubbo.

One more interesting aspect of the Daily Liberal poll is that One Nation polled 8.82 per cent without a registered candidate in the race.

One Nation's Mark Latham says One Nation will more than likely run a candidate in Dubbo.

If they do that the the Nationals would be nervous because the extreme right-wing party traditionally takes votes away from the National Party in any seat they run in.

Sportsbet has the National's candidate Dugald Saunders at $1.01 to win. 

But they do not have a book on Mathew Dickerson which may suggest they have not looked closely at Dubbo when deciding their odds.

The only poll that really matters though is on March 23.

It'll be interesting to see how it turns out.

Make sure you vote.