Political betting on the 2024 U.S. elections is expected to bring in record volumes of bets by November of this year, despite being illegal in the United States, industry experts say. Newsweek.
Players from other countries can legally bet on US politics and some Americans also find ways to bet on the offshore markets by hiding their location, although Newsweek could not determine how much American money was involved in this growing inflow. Americans were also able to profit from derivatives contracts, which the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) now wants to take action against.
In the United States, election betting has been illegal since federal regulations were passed during World War II. The reasoning was that it could influence elections and undermine democracy. Before that, election betting was big business.
Around the world, the US presidential election is still the main event for political gamblers, with former President Donald Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris practically neck and neck.
“The 2024 US election will break all sorts of betting records,” said Sam Eaton, affiliate marketing director of Oddschecker, part of FairPlay Sports Media, which sees between 10 and 11 million sessions each month, with almost a quarter of visits focused on political betting. Oddschecker does not take bets itself, but publishes odds from bookmakers – 28 of them in the UK, for example.
Eaton said Newsweek that in July the platform already recorded more users visiting the betting markets for the US election than for other global events – including the Super Bowl, the European Football Championship and the Masters golf tournament.
Photo illustration by Newsweek/Getty
In 2020, over £600 million (nearly $800 million at the time) was bet on the US election, according to British gambling company Betfair, which predicts more than £1 billion will be wagered by election day this year.
The biggest single bet in 2020 was on Joe Biden to win, which resulted in the bettor pocketing £1.54 million (worth $2 million at the time) on a £1 million stake. Approximately 50 percent of the money wagered on the 2020 election at Betfair was placed in the last five days.
After Trump’s assassination, Eaton said, Trump’s odds changed abruptly. In the days that followed, his odds dropped to 1/4 (an 80 percent chance of winning). While Harris has overtaken Trump as the most popular bet in the market, accounting for 53 percent of bets so far in August, he expects Trump to remain the most popular bet overall from now until Election Day.
Harris’ rise as the Democratic candidate has helped bookmakers, he added. Not only are the bets of those who had bet on Biden’s re-election counted as losses, but bettors who abandoned Biden after the presidential debate now see Harris as a major challenge to Trump – and can make more money overall due to the tight election campaign.
Tim Williams, Director of Public Relations at BetUS, said Newsweek that Biden’s withdrawal led to a significant wave of new betting. BetUS is licensed in Mwali, part of the Union of the Comoros, a tiny archipelago off the coast of East Africa.
There was such a rush of bets and money for Harris that the odds quickly turned into a dead heat that same weekend, he said.
“It usually takes a significant amount of money to actually change the betting odds, and this shows that bettors are far more enthusiastic about Harris than Biden,” Williams said. “Just one week after her nomination, Harris had already attracted more betting slips and higher dollar volume than Trump – an incredible feat in just one week.
“It has also attracted larger bets, which in the world of sports betting is often an indication of ‘sharp money,’ i.e. more professional bettors.”
BetUS has been in business for over 30 years, but the platform’s solvency is rarely dependent on political factors, as traditional sports such as football, baseball and basketball remain its mainstay.
Although the private company does not disclose dollar amounts, it expects strong growth in political betting.
“We don’t see this trend abating anytime soon,” Harris said. “I don’t think polarization leads to more interest in political betting, but close elections certainly do.”
BetOnline spokesman Dave Mason said activity picked up during the 2016 Trump-Hillary Clinton debate.
“The 2020 election then became the largest day in our company’s history in terms of volume of a single event, even surpassing the Super Bowl that year – although recent Super Bowls have since surpassed that record,” he said. Newsweek“Now that Biden is out, we are on track to break that record in 2024.”
“I estimate we haven’t seen 85 to 90 percent of the final total sales yet, as the bulk of the action will take place in October (or) November,” Mason said.
In the midst of the Democratic National Convention in Chicago, Harris’ stock was rising and BetOnline was offering “toss-up” odds for her and Trump at -110 each (which equates to a 54.2 percent chance). This basically means that both candidates are strong and can win.
BetOnline has already placed eight-figure bets on this election cycle and expects those amounts to triple or more by November 5, easily eclipsing all previous election betting records.
The bookmaker said that a Trump victory at this point would result in a six-figure profit for the company, while a Harris victory would result in a “mid to high five-figure loss.”
“Bettors had many opportunities to hedge their positions, either to buy out a losing bet or to guarantee a profit. This certainly eroded our margins,” Mason added.
Global websites like Polymarket, which calls itself the world’s largest prediction market, offer various US election bets. Polymarket was forced offshore in 2022 after the CFTC fined it $1.4 million for operating as an unregulated exchange.
It had to block US users. However, tracking the winnings of American bettors is difficult because people circumvent national regulations by masking their locations through virtual private networks (VPNs) that hide IP addresses. Polymarket has not responded to Newsweek Inquiries.
As of August 22, over $693 million had been bet on the outcome of the presidential election on the platform. 52 percent of voters chose Trump and 46 percent chose Harris as the favorite.
Critics such as journalist John Stossel, co-operator of ElectionBettingOdds.com, which uses websites such as New Zealand-based PredictIt and other foreign prediction markets for betting odds, argue that the proposed CFTC rule targeting betting or “gaming” markets would stifle innovation.
“It looks like we’re losing markets that make our lives better,” Stossel told Newsweek. “Election betting doesn’t hurt anyone and is often helpful. It provides better predictions about the future than anything else. If people want to bet, let them.”
