Election analysts predict the result to be a close-run thing come Saturday evening and it is clear every vote will count.

For Premier Gladys Berejiklian, it is the Sydney stadiums deal that remains the greatest stumbling block.

After more than 12 months of public discussion, the government has been unable to convince large sections of the community that the $2 billion or so committed to the project will be money well spent.

The opposition has focused on the stadiums deal almost exclusively in its campaigning in doing its best to paint a picture of a government that cares more about Sydney sports fans than the health and education of regional NSW.

The government's repeated claims that the rebuilds were needed from both a safety point of view and to enable NSW to attract major national and international sporting events have sounded desperate and hollow.

If the government is to lose its majority - or lose the election altogether - then it will look back at the stadiums policy as the one that cost it the power.

For opposition leader Michael Daley, however, the heaviest burden leading into the last days of campaigning has been Labor's preference deal with the Shooters, Fishers and Farmers Party in many electorates (though not Dubbo, where the SFF are running a vote 1, and Labor is preferencing the Greens).

In regional NSW, in particular, the Nationals fear losing votes to the SFF and those losses will only be exacerbated by preferences running to Labor.

But the timing could not have been worse for Labor with its deals with the Shooters taking on more sinister overtones since the Christchurch mosque terrorist attacks last Friday.

Mr Daley might say he will resign from any parliament that waters down NSW's gun laws but that also sounds desperate and hollow as long he is accepting those votes.

And like the opposition with the stadiums, the Coalition appears certain to keep highlighting those preference deals every chance they get between now and Saturday.

Saturday's election has been coming for four years and now, with just a few days to go, experts still can't say with any certainty how it's going to play out.

Both parties have tried to time their runs to perfection, but there are still some hurdles in their way.

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