Voters told DailyMail.com who they’d put their money on between Donald Trump and Kamala Harris to win the election Tuesday.
More than ever before, betting markets have begun to rival the polls in terms of how people see elections.
Tens of millions of dollars have already been put down to try and win money on the democratic process.
As a billboard in Times Square showed live, real-time bets being placed on the election, we asked people walking through The Crossroads of the World who they’d gamble their cash on.
While many were skeptical of using their own money, one man confessed to already having put $1,200 on a Trump victory.
Voters told DailyMail.com who they’d put their money on between Donald Trump and Kamala Harris to win the election Tuesday
A couple of other voters did say Harris but had to be qualified with them either already supporting her or using someone else’s money.
‘I think I’ll put around like, $1,500 for Trump,’ said another, only to be jabbed by his friend who said he didn’t have the money for it.
Another even said they’d put $2,000 on Trump but a majority of people didn’t see betting on either candidate as a wise investment.
Trump has hit a hiccup in the betting markets following a surge of wagers on Harris of late .
The former president had been soaring on a number of wager platforms but money moved to Harris over the last several days.
With four days until the election the prominent betting website Kalshi had Trump’s chances of winning at 53 percent compared to 47 percent for Harris.
On Tuesday, the former president had been at 64 percent and Harris 36 percent on the site.
Meanwhile, on Polymarket, Trump’s odds of winning fell from 67 percent on October 30 to 59 percent on Friday afternoon.
While many were skeptical of using their own money, one man confessed to already having put $1,200 on a Trump victory
A couple of other voters did say Harris but had to be qualified with them either already supporting her or using someone else’s money
The political prediction site Predictit had Trump with a lead of just two points on Friday.
On October 29 his lead had been 14 points on the site.
Over the same period – October 29 to November 1 – Trump’s chances on both bookmakers Bet365 and Paddy Power dropped from 66.7 percent to 63.6 percent.
Kalshi still had Trump with a better chance of winning five of the seven key battleground states – Arizona, Georgia, Nevada, North Carolina and Pennsylvania.
But it gives Harris a better chance in Michigan and Wisconsin.
Pennsylvania is very close with Trump on 52 percent and Harris 48 percent as of Friday lunchtime.
The Real Clear Politics average of betting markets still had Trump leading Harris by 60.6 percent to 38.1 percent.
However, earlier this week, the Republican candidate had been at 63.9 percent.
Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump and Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton shake hands after the presidential debate in Hempstead, N.Y., Sept. 26, 2016
The betting markets were wrong in 1948 when President Harry S. Truman won; Here, he gleefully displays a premature early edition of the Chicago Daily Tribune from his train in St. Louis, Missouri, after his defeat of Thomas E. Dewey
Polls have the election on a knife-edge, and essentially tied, but for weeks the betting markets have consistently given Trump a clear advantage.
It was unclear what precipitated the shift in the betting markets in recent days.
On October 27 a comedian at Trump’s Madison Square Garden rally in New York made a disparaging joke about Puerto Rico, which led to a widespread backlash.
Kalshi, which is America’s first legal online election prediction wagering platform, has already taken $92 million in bets on the 2024 race.
This week, Tarek Mansour, its CEO, said bettors are a more accurate indication of the result than the polls because they have ‘skin in the game.’
He told DailyMail.com: ‘We should definitely trust the [wagering] markets.
‘Prediction markets are places where people have money on the line. People don’t lie with their money.’
In 2016 the polls indicated Hillary Clinton would easily defeat Trump, but were wrong.
Live election betting on a digital display kiosk on a New York City street
In the past betting markets have proved successful in predicting the outcome of elections.
However, like the polls, they were not a good indicator in 2016.
As long ago as 1924 the Wall Street Journal wrote: ‘Betting odds are generally taken as the best indicator of probable results in presidential campaigns.’
At the time, bookmakers would send people to candidates’ speeches and base odds on how the audience responded to them, according to the newspaper.
In 15 presidential elections from 1884 to 1940 there was only one upset when the bookmakers were wrong, according to a study by economists Paul Rhode and Koleman Strumpf.
However, in 1948 the betting markets, like the polls, got it spectacularly wrong when they only gave President Harry Truman a roughly one in 10 chance of winning.
This article was originally published by a www.dailymail.co.uk . Read the Original article here. .