Election Betting Odds: Trump Hits 95% On Polymarket, Other Sites ...
Former President Donald Trump has continued to surge on betting sites into early Wednesday morning, with bettors becoming increasingly confident of a Trump electoral win—despite most of the major swing states still tallying votes. (Forbes is providing live updates on election results here.)
People cast their in-person early ballot for the 2024 general election at the Northwest Activities ... [+] Center on October 29, 2024 in Detroit, Michigan.
AFP via Getty Images Key FactsPolymarket: Perhaps the most famous election betting player, the blockchain-based site still leaned toward Trump after the first closures, giving him 99.1% implied odds of victory compared to Harris’ 0.7% as of just after 1:30 a.m. EST Wednesday.
Kalshi: The New York-based prediction platform favors Trump by a 99% to 1% margin, a major shift from Saturday, when Harris briefly led on the site; unlike Polymarket, Kalshi legally operates in the U.S., as do rival PredictIt and brokerages Robinhood and Interactive Brokers.
PredictIt: The site which tilted most strongly toward Harris earlier has also swung towards Trump, with PredictIt pricing at 98% to 2% for the former President at 1:30 a.m..
Robinhood/Interactive Brokers: The retail trading giant is the newest major entrant into election betting—and, like Interactive Brokers, offers election betting via ForecastEx—and gives Trump about a 98% win probability compared to 2% for his Democratic opponent.
Betfair and Smarkets: The London-based sites are not open to Americans, but both assign similar chances of a Trump win, with Betfair favoring the Republican by a 97% to 3% margin and Smarkets by a 97% to 2% tilt.
Odds around the time of the first major poll closures at 6 p.m. EST were roughly 60% for Trump and 40% for Harris on high-profile betting platforms.
98.3%. That’s the betting market’s aggregated odds for a Trump victory as of 1:30 a.m. EST, according to the Election Betting Odds tool, which tracks odds across Betfair, Kalshi, PredictIt, Polymarket and Smarkets.
What Do Other Indicators Say?As of 1:30 a.m. EST, Trump had secured 247 Electoral College votes while Harris had 214, according to the Associated Press. The New York Times live presidential forecast said just after midnight Wednesday that it considered Trump “likely” to win the election, with a 95% chance of victory. But, North Carolina and Georgia—which both went to Trump—were the only two of seven crucial battleground states that had been called.
ContraEarlier polling data suggested Harris and Trump stood on nearly equal footing going into Election Day. FiveThirtyEight’s forecasts favored Harris at a 50% to 49% clip, while Silver Bulletin, the model run by statistician and Polymarket adviser Nate Silver, leaned toward Harris by a miniscule 50.02% to 49.99% margin. The difference between betting market odds and poll-based prediction models had been a major subject of debate in recent weeks, with some suggesting betting markets are a better predictor as bettors are financially incentivized to wager on the candidate more likely to win and skeptics pointing to the potentially pro-Trump demographic among bettors as an explanation for the skew.
What Do Betting Odds Show For House And Senate Control?Republicans secured control of the Senate in Tuesday’s election, The New York Times reported, but control of the House was still up for grabs as of 12:50 a.m. EST. The Election Betting Odds tool, which compiles odds from multiple sites, favors Republicans by a 74% to 27% margin to keep control of the House.
How Does Election Betting Work?Sites offer users contracts whose prices are tied to the real-time, market-implied odds of a certain candidate. Each contract pays out $1 if the bettor opted for the winning candidate and $0 if their wager was incorrect. So at the current odds, a contract for Trump would cost about $0.57 and one for Harris roughly $0.44 on Robinhood, with the same binary $0 or $1 return offered for each contract. Election betting sites which operate legally in the U.S. have comparative limits, with Robinhood allowing 5,000 contracts per user and PredictIt $850 per user on each election market.
When Do Election Bets Settle?It varies by platform. Polymarket’s main market will pay out when the Associated Press, Fox News and NBC News desks all call the election in one candidate’s favor (so potentially as soon as this week), Robinhood will pay winning bettors Jan. 7, the day after Congress certifies results, Kalshi on the day of the Jan. 20 inauguration and PredictIt says it will pay out when “any ambiguity or uncertainty before the market is settled.”
CORRECTION (11/5): This story has been updated to reflect that Interactive Brokers and Robinhood route to the same exchange and cannot have different odds.
