Posted on by Californiacontrarian

Who Wants To Bet ?

In many sports, you can find betting odds and point spreads. For example, the New England Patriots could be favored by 7 points over the Buffalo Bills, or the Patriots are 3:2 favorites over the Bills. There are no polls in the world of sport’s predicting. No one at  ESPN, ABC, or Fox is calling one thousand people to get their opinion on who is going to win the Patriots-Bills game.

In the world of politics it is the opposite. There are numerous polls just about every week on just about everything including the 2020 presidential election. The problem is that in the past polls have been sometimes unreliable and at times far from accurate for a variety of reasons, but this is all we have . . .  or is it? Is there a betting line or odds on the 2020 presidential election, and what is the difference between betting line odds and a poll?

The key difference between a betting market and a poll is this – a poll is a snapshot of voter intention at any given time, often including those who are undecided, with an average sample size in the thousands. A betting market is a global future prediction pool, updating in real time, factoring in the opinion of millions of individuals forecasting an event – backing up their opinion with their own cash. In the past, starting in 1868, betting on presidential elections was legal in the U.S. Back then the betting was done predominately by wealthy U.S. politicians and entertainers. How did they do? In 11 of 15 elections the betters were right, and in the 4 that they lost, they predicted a tight margin. However, betting on presidential elections has been illegal since the 1930s, so I guess we are left only with polls . . . or are we?

Although political betting is currently illegal in the U.S., it  is alive and well in other markets. In fact, US-Bookies.com predicted via press release on 6/25/19 that over $100 million will be spent in the 2020 race, “making it the biggest non-sports betting event of all time.”The website US-Bookies.com uses millions of betting dollars worldwide to provide market trends. It specializes in U.S. politics and who wagerers think will win at any given time. A spokesman for them said. “The money wagered on each candidate dictates the odds and therefore the percent chance, based on simple laws of supply and demand. In 2016, some election simulators and polls gave Trump under a 2% chance of success, while the betting market comfortably gave the president anywhere between a 25% and 40% chance of success.”

US-Bookies.com posts probabilities which are derived from “bet365”, a U.K. betting market. In the U.K. this type of betting is legal, regulated, and very large. The odds are converted to more user friendly percents. As of  6/29/19 Donald Trump a 43% chance of winning the 2020 presidential election. This is up from 31.5% on 6/27 and up from 27.5% on 6/1/19. Of the Democratic candidates as of 6/29/19 Biden is at 15.1%, Harris is at 11.3%, and Warren is at 10%. In a straight-up battle with Biden, Trump still enjoys 51.2 to 48.8 percent lead over the former Vice President.

Updated odds as of 7/2/19 (in Britain):

Trump = 45.2%

Harris = 12.9%

Biden = 11.3%

Warren = 9%

I may have to contact my friend in Liverpool and see if I can put some money on the favorite!

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