2024 Presidential Election | 44 Days to Election Day

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Calheel said:
polymarket.com

Polymarket | The World's Largest Prediction Market

Bet on your beliefs
polymarket.com polymarket.com

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).
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As M&C posted above, that number includes all bets, not those on Trump or Kamala. Which just further indicates how irrational the odds are for this race. Nobody’s betting for the Jags to win a game between the Chiefs and the Bills.

In any event, I’m out at this point. We agree the polls are better indicators of what’s happening. I happen to think betting odds in a race like this are for suckers and don’t really indicate anything meaningful, but no problem if others feel differently about it.
 
Calheel said:
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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www.legalsportsbetting.com

How Much Do Americans Bet On Sports | US Total Bet On Sports

A look at how much money Americans bet on sports each year through online and in person sportsbooks. Breaking down the US total bet on sports by each state
www.legalsportsbetting.com www.legalsportsbetting.com

An estimated $100 billion is wagered at legal sportsbooks during the NFL season, with billions wagered on the Super Bowl alone in the US.
 
Centerpiece said:
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?
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Travis Kelce is most definitely not a trumper.
 
lawtig02 said:
www.legalsportsbetting.com

How Much Do Americans Bet On Sports | US Total Bet On Sports

A look at how much money Americans bet on sports each year through online and in person sportsbooks. Breaking down the US total bet on sports by each state
www.legalsportsbetting.com www.legalsportsbetting.com

An estimated $100 billion is wagered at legal sportsbooks during the NFL season, with billions wagered on the Super Bowl alone in the US.
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That conflicts with the AGA numbers, which had just $40 billion bet in the 4th quarter of 2023 (which includes some baseball, basketball and college football). Bovada might be including illegal betting in that number as well, as the AGA just calculated the number for "legal" sportsbooks
 
my mom told me earlier that she heard or read somewhere that beyonce and taylor swift are going to do some sort of joint performance/endorsement.

she's a big t-swift fan (my mom, lol).
 
lawtig02 said:
As M&C posted above, that number includes all bets, not those on Trump or Kamala. Which just further indicates how irrational the odds are for this race. Nobody’s betting for the Jags to win a game between the Chiefs and the Bills.

In any event, I’m out at this point. We agree the polls are better indicators of what’s happening. I happen to think betting odds in a race like this are for suckers and don’t really indicate anything meaningful, but no problem if others feel differently about it.
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If the betting odds are for suckers, you could do as Heelyeah suggested and make a bet. Obviously, there are real financial incentives for the markets not to get too far from the real odds -- as there are many professional gamblers out there who will pound any market inefficiency they see. And regardless of whether the number is $500 million, or $2 billion, there are more than enough sites for sharps to take advantage of any wildly mispriced line.
 
Calheel said:
If the betting odds are for suckers, you could do as Heelyeah suggested and make a bet. Obviously, there are real financial incentives for the markets not to get too far from the real odds -- as there are many professional gamblers out there who will pound any market inefficiency they see. And regardless of whether the number is $500 million, or $2 billion, there are more than enough sites for sharps to take advantage of any wildly mispriced line.
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If betting is for suckers, make a bet?

Walk me through that.
 
CallMeTyler said:
If betting is for suckers, make a bet?

Walk me through that.
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Well, unless the house is collecting a huge rake (like at the horse track), there should be a sucker and a sharp with each bet.

The whole idea of advantage gambling is to get odds at a better percentage than the true odds. When you count cards in blackjack, you can switch a .5% house edge to a 1%-2% player edge, depending upon how aggressive your bet spread.

In sports betting, you are essentially looking for mispriced lines that (in a straight bet) would let you win over 52.5% of the time.

So, if the political betting markets become mispriced because suckers are laying money on Trump, that means there is a sharp-side bet for Kamala. There really shouldn't be suckers on both sides of the line -- particularly in a trading market like polymarket. One side is the sucker side and one side is the sharp side.

If betting markets are completely irrational, then there is a significant financial advantage to be obtained. I am just not as convinced as lawtig that betting markets are completely irrational. So, I essentially proposed putting your money where your mouth is. If someone thinks the markets are way out of whack, they should pound them.

Now, when heelyeah raised this point earlier this year, I suggested that there are lots of reasons not to tie up your excess cash in futures bets that won't payoff for 9 months. That argument is a lot less compelling now that we are less than 100 days from a payoff.
 
Calheel said:
Well, unless the house is collecting a huge rake (like at the horse track), there should be a sucker and a sharp with each bet.

The whole idea of advantage gambling is to get odds at a better percentage than the true odds. When you count cards in blackjack, you can switch a .5% house edge to a 1%-2% player edge, depending upon how aggressive your bet spread.

In sports betting, you are essentially looking for mispriced lines that (in a straight bet) would let you win over 52.5% of the time.

So, if the political betting markets become mispriced because suckers are laying money on Trump, that means there is a sharp-side bet for Kamala. There really shouldn't be suckers on both sides of the line -- particularly in a trading market like polymarket. One side is the sucker side and one side is the sharp side.

If betting markets are completely irrational, then there is a significant financial advantage to be obtained. I am just not as convinced as lawtig that betting markets are completely irrational. So, I essentially proposed putting your money where your mouth is. If someone thinks the markets are way out of whack, they should pound them.

Now, when heelyeah raised this point earlier this year, I suggested that there are lots of reasons not to tie up your excess cash in futures bets that won't payoff for 9 months. That argument is a lot less compelling now that we are less than 100 days from a payoff.
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1. The liquidity in the market is not sufficient for true price discovery. If suckers are laying money on Trump . . . their influence will only be countered by a rush of liquidity for Kamala. It's not like a stock market where there is a very deep pool of capital waiting to jump in at the right price, or at least there are no indications of that from the betting volume.

It absolutely is doable for people to manipulate the betting odds with wagers. If they can bid up Truth Social stock to a market cap of $8B, it is child's play to tilt the betting market odds.

2. There are always suckers on both sides of the line. I think you mean to say that, at any odds, the smart money would see one attractive bet. And maybe so, but that's true of all sorts of mispriced stocks and plenty of smart money has lost big cash shorting a bubble.

3. Betting markets are information, of greater than zero value I just don't know of any evidence that today's betting markets are particularly accurate in predicting US elections. They used to be, a decade and a half ago when the markets were obscure, most participants were political junkies, and there wasn't a class of Trumpers willing to throw their money away in service of the cause and/or a deluded belief that Trump is somehow chosen by God.
 
Calheel said:
Well, unless the house is collecting a huge rake (like at the horse track), there should be a sucker and a sharp with each bet.

The whole idea of advantage gambling is to get odds at a better percentage than the true odds. When you count cards in blackjack, you can switch a .5% house edge to a 1%-2% player edge, depending upon how aggressive your bet spread.

In sports betting, you are essentially looking for mispriced lines that (in a straight bet) would let you win over 52.5% of the time.

So, if the political betting markets become mispriced because suckers are laying money on Trump, that means there is a sharp-side bet for Kamala. There really shouldn't be suckers on both sides of the line -- particularly in a trading market like polymarket. One side is the sucker side and one side is the sharp side.

If betting markets are completely irrational, then there is a significant financial advantage to be obtained. I am just not as convinced as lawtig that betting markets are completely irrational. So, I essentially proposed putting your money where your mouth is. If someone thinks the markets are way out of whack, they should pound them.

Now, when heelyeah raised this point earlier this year, I suggested that there are lots of reasons not to tie up your excess cash in futures bets that won't payoff for 9 months. That argument is a lot less compelling now that we are less than 100 days from a payoff.
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I can follow the betting wrt sports, but you have the analytics to support a betting position (historical trends, team makeup, home vs away, rivalry history, etc) but how do you build in that sort of advantage for a political matchup? And perhaps there isn't any real logic behind it - Trump, his rise in the GOP, MAGA fanatics - all unpredictable odds.

How do you not conclude that betting on a matchup w/ Trump is in fact illogical? And who would be the sucker/sharp in this instance?

This particular bet, with these parties, seems like "throw money on my preferred candidate and let it ride".
 
superrific said:
1. The liquidity in the market is not sufficient for true price discovery. If suckers are laying money on Trump . . . their influence will only be countered by a rush of liquidity for Kamala. It's not like a stock market where there is a very deep pool of capital waiting to jump in at the right price, or at least there are no indications of that from the betting volume.

It absolutely is doable for people to manipulate the betting odds with wagers. If they can bid up Truth Social stock to a market cap of $8B, it is child's play to tilt the betting market odds.

2. There are always suckers on both sides of the line. I think you mean to say that, at any odds, the smart money would see one attractive bet. And maybe so, but that's true of all sorts of mispriced stocks and plenty of smart money has lost big cash shorting a bubble.

3. Betting markets are information, of greater than zero value I just don't know of any evidence that today's betting markets are particularly accurate in predicting US elections. They used to be, a decade and a half ago when the markets were obscure, most participants were political junkies, and there wasn't a class of Trumpers willing to throw their money away in service of the cause and/or a deluded belief that Trump is somehow chosen by God.
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The short risk is not analogous at all. The financial markets can be irrational longer than your cash holds out.

The election will be resolved in 100 days (fingers crossed).

The rest of your post I largely agree with and said as much elsewhere.
 
CallMeTyler said:
I can follow the betting wrt sports, but you have the analytics to support a betting position (historical trends, team makeup, home vs away, rivalry history, etc) but how do you build in that sort of advantage for a political matchup? And perhaps there isn't any real logic behind it - Trump, his rise in the GOP, MAGA fanatics - all unpredictable odds.

How do you not conclude that betting on a matchup w/ Trump is in fact illogical? And who would be the sucker/sharp in this instance?

This particular bet, with these parties, seems like "throw money on my preferred candidate and let it ride".
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It is like any other bet on a future event. You have a model that plugs in variables and it produces a prediction. If you believe your model is better than the betting market model, you take advantage of the spread.

There are lots of data points, including polls, that are arguably far more predictive than how UNC performed against South Carolina.
 
my friend who is a letter carrier in Raleigh said the Trump campaign finally did fliers. Said he has three to be delivered to every door today, which is odd. Things are usually more spread out.
 
Calheel said:
It is like any other bet on a future event. You have a model that plugs in variables and it produces a prediction. If you believe your model is better than the betting market model, you take advantage of the spread.

There are lots of data points, including polls, that are arguably far more predictive than how UNC performed against South Carolina.
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Polls don’t tilt in Trump’s favor. Does the fact the betting lines have started to even out indicate Trump bets are made by suckers?
 
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