Betting on elections is not legal in the US, but it is overseas. Real Clear Politics (a heavily right leaning, but not completely whackydoodle website) publishes an average of many polls nationally and by state. It also publishes a running average of the international betting market on US elections for major betting houses. The above chart is what it has looked like for the past 90 days. I added the two arrows for key events and also the light red/blue curve/line.
While Trumps support is holding SOMEWHAT steady, it is starting to drift down ever so slightly. So how is it possible that Biden has been in a steady climb since the State of the Union? Bettors are realizing the Michelle Obama is not going to be the next President of the United States. The same can be said of Newsom and Harris and Phillips. Everyone is coming home to the man who will be the nominee.
When the Hur report came out, some bettors figured the Democrats would have to cut bait and pick another candidate. You’ll notice that the hit that Biden took as a result did not turn into a lift to Trump’s numbers. This is important. TRUMP HAS A CEILING!!! All the other Democrats is where all the bettors went bringing Biden’s numbers down. When President Biden killed it during the SOTU speech, they slowly decided he was going to do just fine.
Now, let’s look at something else this shows us. Biden currently is at 42.8 and Trump is at 42.
- If you add Obama (Michelle), Newsom, Harris, and Phillips, that’s 8.3. Biden will likely pick up almost all of this support as the day gets closer giving him 51.1.
- For Trump, there is Haley and
Disasterous Desantis with a total of 2.3. Trump is FAR from guaranteed to pick up all of this, particularly some of the Haley voters who he seems to go out of his way to piss off. Even if he does, that’s only 45.1.
- That assumes “Kennedy” stays in the race or gets on enough ballots to matter. Neither of those things is assured.
Here are the raw data:
Note 1: Betting odds will not normally add up to a perfect 100. They are not a percent because they include the “vig” which is the betting houses’ profits. There are likely some much smaller candidates who have less the Desantis’ 0.5.
Note 2: If this were a percent, this does not attempt to predict the popular vote. It is a bet on who will win the election, i.e. who will have at least 270 electoral college votes.
Why are betting odds perhaps meaningful? This isn’t people dodging phone calls from numbers they don’t recognize or answering polls incorrectly just to screw with the poll takers or polling houses using bad polling models of the electorate. This is people putting their money where their mouths are. There is SOME betting for a candidate one favors, but most bettors are actually trying to WIN MONEY, so they put their money on who they think will win. At the end of the day, these betting odds are often pretty close.
It is simply another indicator of which way the wind is blowing.