2024 Presidential Election | 44 Days to Election Day

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Sure. For one thing, betting volume for politics is far, far lower than for things like NFL games, so relatively small bets, or a single large bet, can cause the houses to move the line to even things out. For another, to the extent there are rational people betting on the election, Kamala moved so high so fast that it created a somewhat irrational line for a bit. Smart gamblers are always looking to take advantage of rapid line movements, especially in contests that are almost guaranteed to be close at the end. And third, as noted above, I do think Trump supporters are more likely to irrationally put their money on the election than others. That can move the line a bit in his direction, especially given the relatively low volume.
I’m pretty sure you are wrong factually on betting amounts. If you have some stats to back up your claim that a single NFL game is more heavily bet than the presidential market, I’d love to see it.
 
Trump tried to steal Beyonce's "Freedom" from Kamala. Didn't go so well.


According to Rolling Stone, the now-deleted clip was posted to Twitter/X by Steven Cheung on Tuesday, and showed the persistent song-swindler disembarking from a plane in Michigan.

Despite some profoundly stupid choices like using The Village People’s YMCA at his campaign rallies or trying to go up against George Harrison’s estate, the use of “Freedom” is perhaps Team Trump’s most uninspired swipe yet. That’s because someone already claimed it: Kamala Harris. The difference (well, one of many) is that the Democratic nominee actually secured Beyoncé’s blessing—and more importantly, Beyoncé’s mother Tina Knowles’—before launching the track as her official campaign song.
 
I’m pretty sure you are wrong factually on betting amounts. If you have some stats to back up your claim that a single NFL game is more heavily bet than the presidential market, I’d love to see it.
I don't think they said a single NFL game is more heavily bet than the presidential market just that overall the NFL is much larger. From my googling about $1.3b was bet on the 2020 election. For comparison $16b was bet on the Superbowl last year. Its reasonable to think the full NFL betting market is probably $50b or more.

The most popular prez betting market that keeps getting quoted is Polymarket which is a platform for crypto gamblers. As of a week ago they had $592m in bets on the election. But that includes ALL possible candidates. Only about $130m has been bet on either Trump or Kamala.
 
I don't think they said a single NFL game is more heavily bet than the presidential market just that overall the NFL is much larger. From my googling about $1.3b was bet on the 2020 election. For comparison $16b was bet on the Superbowl last year. Its reasonable to think the full NFL betting market is probably $50b or more.

The most popular prez betting market that keeps getting quoted is Polymarket which is a platform for crypto gamblers. As of a week ago they had $592m in bets on the election. But that includes ALL possible candidates. Only about $130m has been bet on either Trump or Kamala.
Yeah, it’s impossible to know how much is bet on presidential elections because domestic books can’t do it and overseas books generally don’t share their numbers. This is a pretty good analysis, though, albeit from a site with a strong interest in promoting betting.


There are several pros and cons for relying on the betting markets to predict the winner of a U.S. presidential election.

PROS:​

  • Betting markets can adjust very quickly to real-time news updates of significance, such as a candidate’s health, investigations like the FBI looking into Hillary Clinton’s emails in 2016 right before the election, or if something were to happen with Trump’s sentencing in July this year.
  • Bettors put their money where their mouth is and vote the way they bet, and there are millions wagered on elections, so these voters have a vested interest in helping their candidate win their bet for them.
  • The odds have good predictive power and a track record of success with favorites usually winning the election outside of 1916, 1948, and 2016.

CONS:​

  • Market manipulation is possible if some sharks make huge bets that sway the odds in a certain direction, such as when someone bet at least $4 million on Mitt Romney in the 2012 election. It is also possible that the population of bettors are not evenly distributed among Democrats, Republicans, and independents, giving one side an advantage.
  • While updating for current news can be good, sometimes that is an overreaction, such as Trump’s guilty verdict this year. After 2 weeks, his odds are right back to where they were before the verdict was read.
  • Live betting odds in 2020 grossly overestimated Trump’s chances of winning on election night as the mail-in votes, which were largely done by Joe Biden voters, were not counted until later, which led to Biden’s victory.
  • Since the odds are just for the winner, it may not be reflecting the state-wide odds properly in the swing states that should ultimately decide the election winner.
 
Trump tried to steal Beyonce's "Freedom" from Kamala. Didn't go so well.


According to Rolling Stone, the now-deleted clip was posted to Twitter/X by Steven Cheung on Tuesday, and showed the persistent song-swindler disembarking from a plane in Michigan.

Despite some profoundly stupid choices like using The Village People’s YMCA at his campaign rallies or trying to go up against George Harrison’s estate, the use of “Freedom” is perhaps Team Trump’s most uninspired swipe yet. That’s because someone already claimed it: Kamala Harris. The difference (well, one of many) is that the Democratic nominee actually secured Beyoncé’s blessing—and more importantly, Beyoncé’s mother Tina Knowles’—before launching the track as her official campaign song.
I would note still haven't heard anything from Taylor Swift about Trump falsely claiming her endorsement.

Animation Well See GIF by Max
 
Hey! I resemble that remark!
I would note still haven't heard anything from Taylor Swift about Trump falsely claiming her endorsement.

Animation Well See GIF by Max
Taylor Swift’s silence right now is deafening. Is her boyfriend KC Kelce a Trumper? Maybe a closet Trumper? Is her relationship with him swaying her… one way or another? Just curious. I don’t follow Swift, and I’m not a fan of her music (even tho I give her HUGE props for being authentic, and writing and performing her own, original material). I just find it curious she’s not mentioned anything publicly about trump using her image and material and the fact she has not come out in support of Harris/Walz campaign. Others have: JT, Neil Young, Stevie, John Legend, Beyoncé, Mellencamp, etc. etc.

Come on Taylor. Shit or get off the pot. Perhaps she’s waiting for tonight and Kamala’s acceptance speech?
 
I don't think they said a single NFL game is more heavily bet than the presidential market just that overall the NFL is much larger. From my googling about $1.3b was bet on the 2020 election. For comparison $16b was bet on the Superbowl last year. Its reasonable to think the full NFL betting market is probably $50b or more.

The most popular prez betting market that keeps getting quoted is Polymarket which is a platform for crypto gamblers. As of a week ago they had $592m in bets on the election. But that includes ALL possible candidates. Only about $130m has been bet on either Trump or Kamala.
Yeah, those numbers square with what I had seen. Which is why I was fairly confident that lawtig was wrong when he said more money was bet on a single NFL game (unless he meant exclusively the Super Bowl, which is obviously in a very unique category).

I had this discussion with Super last year. Obviously, the presidential betting markets aren't as good at price discovery as the stock market, there is still enough volume to have some relevance to the analysis.

Lawtig's suggestion was that presidential betting markets are so lightly traded that a few Trumpers could sway the numbers just based on an overcorrection. While that is possible, I think the more likely scenario is that the Kennedy news has moved the betting markets a skootch this week. At this stage in the race, it doesn't take very much to sway a couple of points. That said, the key thing to watch with betting markets is trends. Those only change a few times over the course of an election. The fact that Kamala peaked at 55% or so and has now reverted back to 50% is more interesting to me than the actual numbers. It is the betting markets essentially putting a governor on her upward swing.

In any event, one thing I do agree with lawtig is that polls and sites like 538 are much more reliable indicators of what is going to happen (and what is presently happening) than betting markets.
 
Taylor Swift’s silence right now is deafening. Is her boyfriend KC Kelce a Trumper? Maybe a closet Trumper? Is her relationship with him swaying her… one way or another? Just curious. I don’t follow Swift, and I’m not a fan of her music (even tho I give her HUGE props for being authentic, and writing and performing her own, original material). I just find it curious she’s not mentioned anything publicly about trump using her image and material and the fact she has not come out in support of Harris/Walz campaign. Others have: JT, Neil Young, Stevie, John Legend, Beyoncé, Mellencamp, etc. etc.

Come on Taylor. Shit or get off the pot. Perhaps she’s waiting for tonight and Kamala’s acceptance speech?
Kelce is a first ballot HOF liberal. He's not the hold up.
 
Yeah, those numbers square with what I had seen. Which is why I was fairly confident that lawtig was wrong when he said more money was bet on a single NFL game (unless he meant exclusively the Super Bowl, which is obviously in a very unique category).

I had this discussion with Super last year. Obviously, the presidential betting markets aren't as good at price discovery as the stock market, there is still enough volume to have some relevance to the analysis.

Lawtig's suggestion was that presidential betting markets are so lightly traded that a few Trumpers could sway the numbers just based on an overcorrection. While that is possible, I think the more likely scenario is that the Kennedy news has moved the betting markets a skootch this week. At this stage in the race, it doesn't take very much to sway a couple of points. That said, the key thing to watch with betting markets is trends. Those only change a few times over the course of an election. The fact that Kamala peaked at 55% or so and has now reverted back to 50% is more interesting to me than the actual numbers. It is the betting markets essentially putting a governor on her upward swing.

In any event, one thing I do agree with lawtig is that polls and sites like 538 are much more reliable indicators of what is going to happen (and what is presently happening) than betting markets.
The NFL game comparison was incidental to my initial post so I’m not going to spend much time defending it, but the best estimate for total betting in an NFL season seems to be about $100 billion. There are 272 total games, so the average is in the range of $370 million per game. Many are much higher than that, of course, and many are lower. But I haven’t seen anything that shows the total amount bet on the Harris-Trump race (none of which can be legally bet in the US) will approach $370 million. So I do stand by my point that on the whole, the lines for NFL games are more rational for a number of reasons, including the volume of the betting.
 
Taylor Swift’s silence right now is deafening. Is her boyfriend KC Kelce a Trumper? Maybe a closet Trumper? Is her relationship with him swaying her… one way or another? Just curious. I don’t follow Swift, and I’m not a fan of her music (even tho I give her HUGE props for being authentic, and writing and performing her own, original material). I just find it curious she’s not mentioned anything publicly about trump using her image and material and the fact she has not come out in support of Harris/Walz campaign. Others have: JT, Neil Young, Stevie, John Legend, Beyoncé, Mellencamp, etc. etc.

Come on Taylor. Shit or get off the pot. Perhaps she’s waiting for tonight and Kamala’s acceptance speech?
The lack of endorsement of Kamala doesn't bother me, but allowing Trump to assign her an endorsement without challenge really is harmful in my opinion. It comes off as tacit agreement.
 
The NFL game comparison was incidental to my initial post so I’m not going to spend much time defending it, but the best estimate for total betting in an NFL season seems to be about $100 billion. There are 272 total games, so the average is in the range of $370 million per game. Many are much higher than that, of course, and many are lower. But I haven’t seen anything that shows the total amount bet on the Harris-Trump race (none of which can be legally bet in the US) will approach $370 million. So I do stand by my point that on the whole, the lines for NFL games are more rational for a number of reasons, including the volume of the betting.

Already showing over $694 million bet. I suspect the total wagered on the US presidential election will be over $2 billion worldwide. The fact that it is not legal in the US is essentially irrelevant as offshore books are plentiful and non-US bettors make up a significant share of the market.

In general, a single well-publicized event with months of futures betting will collect more revenue than a single sporting event, which just has a few days to collect revenue before the next game (and is competing with many other NFL games for dollars).
 

Already showing over $694 million bet. I suspect the total wagered on the US presidential election will be over $2 billion worldwide. The fact that it is not legal in the US is essentially irrelevant as offshore books are plentiful and non-US bettors make up a significant share of the market.

In general, a single well-publicized event with months of futures betting will collect more revenue than a single sporting event, which just has a few days to collect revenue before the next game (and is competing with many other NFL games for dollars).
Also, I couldn't find support for your NFL numbers.

The AGA pegged total sports wagering at $119 billion for 2023: American Gaming Association: Legal sports betting hits record revenue in 2023.

If you assumed half of that for the NFL, you'd only be at $60 billion. Plus, there are roughly 550 NFL games a year. So that would come out to roughly $100 million per NFL game (and that is obviously an overstatement by using the mean, rather than the median. The $16 billion on the Superbowl really skews the numbers for the average game).
 
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