Well, it’s a classic case of “put your money where your mouth is”…also, a fool and his money are parted soon after the contract is settled after the election.
I can see bettors thinking that frustration over Helene will ensure Trump wins NC and GA. I can also see Trump’s naked attempts to politicize it and lie about the response hurting him, but find that idea plausible.
I don’t think there’s much to “trust”. If a bunch of people with a bunch of money want to bet on Trump, then the market will lean Trump.
That could be market manipulation, or it could be rationality, or it could just be your average rich internet gambler wears a maga hat.
No doubt some “rational” people will put more money down when 538 or Nate Silver or whatever say that a candidate is underpriced, but that’s probably? not a huge stake.
i put no limits on the market manipulators. “polls are biased, but the house that always wins is above shenanigans” and so the bets give us “unbiased” info. except we don’t know the motivation of the people placing wagers.
i find it relatively hard to imagine there is more support for trump now vs prior and that there is more turnout among his voters. his support is likely above my estimate, but materially? maybe materially by count doesn’t matter if it is in the right states
I don’t know much about polymarket. They claim to have 1.5B in trading volume , which seems unreal. Back when Intrade was around they definitely suffered from low trade volume such that the prices weren’t well established.
Looking at 538 right now…
Clinton was +4% Nationally, and +3.7% PA. She lost PA by 0.7%.
Biden was +8% Nationally, and +4.7% in PA. He won PA by 1.2%
Harris is +2.6% Nationally and +0.8% in PA. .
Polymarket also puts no limits on market manipulators.
So yeah, Elon Musk or Peter Theil or Putin or whatever could put $100M on Trump, and it would presumably skew the market. Which I guess is bit of advertising for Fox News or whatever. But probably not a big deal.
In practice it’s a basically 50/50, so it’s something they might do anyway just for fun or because they feel smart.
If you use these markets as a hedging tool, it could distort the implied probabilities. For instance, if people think a Trump win posses more of an economic risk to their portfolio, they would bet on Trump winning as a hedge?
I’m just saying, you can’t be all “People have finally realized that Trump is a terrible monster, not to mention he is old now.” Or “Harris is so much better than Biden/Clinton in every way. Plus she crushed the debate.”
These are normal human things to think, but we don’t live in a normal human world.
There are people who think they are idiots because they don’t understand. Then there are idiots who think what they don’t understand is stupid. The second group is voting for Trump.
Polls (via 538) are tightening s.t. Harris’ lead in some of these is by 0-1 point.
Polls (via 270towin) disagree on NV(6) & PA(19) giving them to Trump (though, barely)
Futures markets (via polymarket) have NV still as D but PA & MI(15) as R…and, overall, favor R with (implied) 55% certainty.
I don’t know how I got 276-262 before, but now I have…
The betting sites now favoring Trump by a couple of percentage points. Time to panic? I honestly can’t really read this election. It’s clear that Harris has hit a ceiling here. My only hope here is that I remember the so called “red wave” didn’t happen in the last midterm elections, so maybe the polling is overestimating support for Trump.
