Here's How We Might Know Very Early On Which Way Scotland Is Going To Vote

Scotland is voting Thursday on whether to become independent from the UK, and it's expected to be a VERY late night.

Final results in the big cities of Glasgow and Edinburgh won't be reported until about 5 a.m. Friday local time (or midnight ET). (You can read our live blog of the election here.)

But we might know earlier than that.

According to The Political Bookie, a blog of the gambling site Ladbrokes, you should watch the voting in the council of North Lanarkshire, which will announce its results at 2 a.m. local time Friday morning (or 9 p.m. ET Thursday).

The Ladbrokes odds for North Lanarkshire are very evenly split.

Here's what they say:

North Lanarkshire on the other hand could set the tone early on. This is one of the most populous regions and at the moment, we can't split YES and NO:

If NO wins here, then I'd be fairly certain that Scotland is staying in the UK. A YES win with over 53% or so would indicate that the nationalists are on course to go very close.

Clackmannanshire at 2.30 could also be interesting - we rate this as the second most likely area to go YES after Dundee, so if they can't win here, that will be a very poor showing.

So we'll be watching North Lanarkshire through the night to see if we can get an early sense of which way Scotland is going.

(Via @lorcanrk)