We support our Publishers and Content Creators. You can view this story on their website by CLICKING HERE.

According to the betting markets, Vice President Kamala Harris is in deep, deep trouble heading into the 2024 presidential election.

ElectionBettingOdds.com, a site that averages betting odds across multiple markets, had former President Donald Trump leading with 60.3 percent of bets and Harris losing with a paltry 39.1 percent of bets as of the morning of Oct. 22nd.

RealClearPolitics, another site that tracks betting averages (and polling averages), meanwhile had Trump up 60.1 percent and Harris down 38.7 percent.

One especially popular betting platform is called Polymarket:

These numbers vastly differ from the polls, particularly the national polls, which continue to show Harris ahead by a few percentage points. But which one should you believe?

Maxim Lott, the guy who runs ElectionBettingOdds.com, personally thinks you should believe the betting sites, not the polls.

“These are really accurate,” he told Fox News. “They’re more accurate than just trying to look at polls or especially more accurate than listening to pundits bloviating. [The bettors] look at all sorts of historical data; they look at trends. I find the percent more useful than the polls.”

“Last cycle we had more than a billion dollars traded. That’s still [not] that much if you compare it to … the stock market or something, but it’s enough that we have a reliable indicator, and that’s what [is] important to us as users who just want to know what’s going to happen,” he added.

Fair enough.

He continued by noting that since folks risk their own money when betting, the market boasts the ability to “discipline people” who get it wrong.

“If you’re not very smart, or very biased, you’re going to lose your money pretty quickly, and then maybe you won’t bet again next election,” he said.

Regarding Trump’s current massive lead, Lott said it points to an end to the “honeymoon period” that Harris enjoyed during and immediately after the Democrat National Committee.

Note that before President Joe Biden dropped out of the race, Trump was winning handily in the betting markets. Then he dropped out, Harris took over, and the betting markets sort of flipped. Months later, they’ve flipped again.

“Things have kind of reverted back to the mean where – it is a tough cycle for Democrats with things like inflation and immigration, and so maybe for a couple months people were like, ‘Oh, Harris, this is interesting, this is new, this is refreshing,’ and then it’s kind of sinking in: ‘This is the same administration we didn’t like with Biden,’” Lott said.

Now, of course, Democrats strongly disagree with Lott about the relevance of the betting markets. To hear them tell it, the markets are being manipulated in Trump’s favor by a few select “whales” throwing their money around.

“Republicans have purchased and flooded the zone with Trump-leaning junk polls, but are now also placing anonymous whale bets using crypto on Peter Theil’s Polymarket,” one leftist tweeted Monday. “They are Gamsestop’ing the 2024 election to create another red wave mirage.”

Tarek Mansour, the founder of the betting platform Kalshi, sought to debunk this narrative in the Twitter/X thread below:

To be clear, Trump could still lose. BUT if the betting markets and swing state polls (forget the national polls) are accurate, he won’t.

Vivek Saxena
Latest posts by Vivek Saxena (see all)

We have no tolerance for comments containing violence, racism, profanity, vulgarity, doxing, or discourteous behavior. If a comment is spam, instead of replying to it please click the ∨ icon below and to the right of that comment. Thank you for partnering with us to maintain fruitful conversation.