Trump bounces back on betting markets after shock Iowa poll
Donald Trump began to recover in the betting markets after a stunning poll saw his election chances plummet.
A Des Moines Register poll released Saturday evening sent shockwaves through markets after showing Trump losing the red state of Iowa to Kamala Harris.
It prompted a flood of bets on Harris to win the US election, and Trump’s odds fell on a range of betting and prediction markets – including Kalshi, Polymarket and Predictit.
Harris even overtook Trump as the favorite for the White House over Kalshi.
However, markets appeared to correct slightly on Sunday as Trump rose again.
Republican presidential candidate and former US President Donald Trump gestures during a campaign rally in Lititz, Pennsylvania, USA, November 3, 2024
After Kamala Harris closed the gap, Trump began to deflect from Kalshi again
On Sunday afternoon, Trump was again the favorite over Kalshi with a 52 percent chance of victory, compared to Harris at 48 percent.
Harris was four points higher on Predictit, having previously opened up an eight-point lead on the site.
Polymarket showed Trump an eight-point lead after it dropped to six.
The Real Clear Politics betting average showed Trump with a nine-point lead.
The former president had been rising on a number of gambling platforms for weeks, but the money moved to Harris earlier this week.
Vice President Kamala Harris is making gains in the gambling markets
Then on Saturday, the Des Monies Register poll showed Harris leading Trump 47 percent to 44 percent among likely voters in the traditionally conservative state.
Ann Selzer has built a reputation as “Iowa’s Polling Queen” and the “best pollster in politics” over decades of conducting Des Moines Register polls.
Iowa has not voted for a Democrat in the presidential election since Barack Obama in 2012 and was written off by the Harris campaign as an easy victory for the Republican Party.
Before the poll came out, Trump was already falling on the betting markets.
Between October 29 and November 1, his odds on both bookmakers Bet365 and Paddy Power fell from 66.7 percent to 63.6 percent.
Live election betting on a digital kiosk on a New York City street
On the Real Clear Politics average of the betting markets earlier this week, Trump had led Harris by as much as 60.6 percent to 38.1 percent.
The polls have the election close to a close and essentially tied, but the betting markets have consistently given Trump a clear advantage for weeks.
They first started falling on October 27, after a comedian made a disparaging joke about Puerto Rico at the Trump rally at New York’s Madison Square Garden, sparking a widespread backlash.
Kalshi, America’s first legal online betting platform for election predictions, has already placed $92 million in bets on the 2024 race.
Kamala Harris was far behind in the betting markets
A gambler makes a decision about the election
This week, Tarek Mansour, the CEO, said bettors are a more accurate indicator of the outcome than the polls because they have “skin in the game.”
He told DailyMail.com: ‘We certainly have to rely on the [wagering] markets.
“Prediction markets are places where people have money on the line. People don’t lie with their money.’
In 2016, polls indicated that Hillary Clinton would easily beat Trump, but they were wrong.
In the past, betting markets have proven successful in predicting the outcome of elections.
But like the polls, they were not a good indicator in 2016.
Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump and Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton shake hands after the presidential debate in Hempstead, NY, September 26, 2016
the betting markets were wrong in 1948 when President Harry S. Truman won; Here he cheerfully displays a premature early edition of the Chicago Daily Tribune from his train in St. Louis, Missouri, after his defeat of Thomas E. Dewey
As early as 1924, the Wall Street Journal wrote, “Betting is generally regarded as the best indicator of likely results in presidential campaigns.”
At the time, bookmakers sent people to candidates’ speeches and based the odds on how the public reacted, the newspaper said.
According to a study by economists Paul Rhode and Koleman Strumpf, in the fifteen presidential elections from 1884 to 1940, there was only one upset when the bookmakers were wrong.
In 1948, however, the betting markets, like the polls, were spectacularly wrong when they gave President Harry Truman only about a one-in-ten chance of winning.