You can bet on this US poll forecast
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THE raucous, passionate and unpredictable 2016 United States presidential election is on track to notch another distinction — the most wagered-upon political event ever.
With many opinion polls showing a tight race just a day before tomorrow’s election, record numbers of bettors are pouring millions into online platforms from Ireland to Iowa in the hope of capturing a financial windfall from a victory by Democrat Hillary Clinton or Republican Donald Trump.
British-based Internet betting exchange Betfair said on Sunday its “Next President” market was set to become the most traded it had ever seen and expected to surpass even Brexit, the contentious United Kingdom referendum to leave the European Union.
By Sunday, roughly US$130 million had been traded on who will become the next US president, compared with US$159 million on the Brexit referendum, a Betfair spokeswoman said. The amount bet so far on the 2016 contest dwarfs the roughly US$50 million laid on the 2012 race.
Betfair’s “Next President” market was by far the largest of more than 70 markets on the site related to the US election. As of Friday, some $140 million has been put into play on markets ranging from who will win the popular vote to how many states each party will carry.
On Ireland’s Paddy Power, which merged with Betfair earlier this year, the US presidential election “is definitely on course to be the biggest political event,” said its spokesman The site has had about US$4.38 million bet on the race so far.
Ladbrokes, a UK-based gambling company, said about 5 million pounds (US$6 million), had been bet on the 2016 presidential election since its markets on the race opened four years ago. A Ladbrokes spokesman said that amount was “at least double” the amount wagered on the 2012 election.
The three sites all reported an 83 percent probability of a Clinton victory tomorrow. Her probability shot up a few percentage points on Sunday after the FBI stood by its earlier recommendation that no criminal charges were warranted against Clinton in her use of a private e-mail server.
The vast majority of big-dollar political betting occurs outside America. Wagering on elections in the United States is limited by law to relatively small trading platforms connected to universities, which use data from the markets for academic research.
Still, the sites are abuzz with activity as the election nears, albeit in small amounts.
On PredictIt, the five most-active markets all related to the presidential election. PredictIt is not legally permitted to disclose the amount of money traded, but its top three markets have all reached the maximum number of participants.
Trading on the older Iowa Electronic Markets has also been brisk, though a spokeswoman said she could not say if 2016 was seeing substantially more volume than in 2012, when President Barack Obama won re-election.
The latest Reuters/Ipsos poll showed Clinton with a 5 percentage point lead over Trump in the national survey — 44 percent to 39 percent — while races in the swing states of Florida, North Carolina had shifted from Clinton’s control to being too close to call.
The PredictIt market gave Clinton an 81 percent probability of winning the White House.
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