going big on NO Biden presidency 2024 @ 0.60 on predictit. sportsbooks and polymarket are taking 0.70-75. significant upside if he has to drop out for health reasons, even if not his approval rating is 15pts below when he took office with a slim electoral margin. even if things somehow change for the Biden better, odds are liable to be around 50/50 in October and can cash out then. see it as decent 65% upside with limited 20% downside come October. think I still have Trump 50/50 if he's in jail.

Imagine even getting 2-1 when fair is 1-1 and not hitting it

Recs will begin to see this ROI soon

FWIW i took polymarket and betfair I just don't trust the former with payouts fully so couldn't HAM the 3-1 being offered, if it were on betfair I'd jam it

Oh yes Nikki, please get more emotional on stage for the handful of voters, I'll take more units at evens for her to not drop out before Super Tuesday if it somehow gets offered on a deranged (but not as deranged as her) market again



https://twitter.com/disclosetv/statu...02626027172261

What are the latest thoughts from the masterminds here on this election?

I gotta admit, even I got spooked by the Hur Report back in February. At the time it seemed so incredibly damaging to Biden. Now in hindsight, it was a classic Fundamental Theorem of Political Betting situation. Buy during periods of weakness. We could have gotten Biden at 40c. What a gift.

Always remember the Fundamental Theorem of Political Betting.

CFTC Wants to Ban Trades Tied to Elections, Sports and Awards Contests. The number of event contracts has mushroomed since Covid, the regulator says as it seeks to separate gambling from investing.

😭

What are your thoughts on the current political landscape Tom?

Biden has lost too many coalitional pieces compared to 2020. He ends up losing in a low-turnout election. Congressional Democrats outperform polls and wind up controlling both the House and Senate. Trump is a lame-duck President on day 1 and with a hostile Congress he has a historically bad 2nd term. Gavin Newsom with VP Kirsten Gillibrand coast into the presidency in 2028.

Sizzling takes. Have you actually modeled any of this? I feel that low-turnout elections may be a thing of the past because of mail-in ballots and no-ID voting. I've done no work on this, but I'd be curious to see the regulations for each state regarding mail-in votes, what it takes to register, number of polling places, etc. My impression is that the more convenient it is to vote, and the easier it is to cheat (with mail-in ballots especially, which seem ripe for activist and NGO shenanigans), the more likely Democrats are to win. I don't know why Republicans seem disinclined to cheat, but having spent plenty of time in both circles, the dynamic seems to be the left wants to facilitate voting to the point of cheating, and the right wants to restrict voting to the point of inconvenience. I don't understand why the right doesn't employ the same tactics they accuse the left of using with regards to cheating, since you wouldn't even have to get away with it—you'd just have to show that cheating took place and therefore we need a much more secure system (paper ballots, IDs, no mail-ins, no machines, everything counted within a day). But that's how it is, as far as I can tell. If anyone has a map of states/precincts by voting regulations, and the populations in those precincts, that would be pretty informative for how to bet.

I hope some organization will assemble an audience of a few hundred people to judge the Trump/Biden debate using Oxford-style rules so we can place bets on who won.

Biden probably thinks of himself as a master of debate and it was his team holding him back from debating. Now that the debate is going to happen, it seems like a defacto acknowledgment from Team Biden that he can't just coast to victory.

Despite what his supporters say, Trump is not a very good debater. Prediction: Biden as the crafty veteran will get Trump to constantly repeat how the 2020 election was stolen from him.

You won't be able to bet on the debate winner according to an objective organization, but bovada (and presumably other books) has lines on who will "win." It's currently Biden -125 Trump -105, and the bet is whom the first CNN poll of debate viewers will say won. I would take Biden up to like -1000 on that, just because I can't imagine CNN would allow their poll to say Trump won.

I think Biden doing these debates is a mistake for him. I don't think anything said during them will change the minds of a significant number of voters, but I think there's a risk Biden has a moment like Mitch McConnell did where the age-degeneration of his brain becomes too glaring to ignore, and that could cost him voters. He seems much more at risk for such an episode than Trump.

This is a pretty good assessment imo.

While the debates won't change most peoples minds, we all know this and have known this. But swing voters (obviously) do exist, they decide these elections. Most of them aren't swing voters because they just love both candidates and cannot decide who they love more. They're generally disgusted with both sides, but consider voting or civic duty or whatever. I think something like 'refusing a debate' is highly likely to sway such people. The swing also could just be a swing between voting for the major candidate or casting a protest vote for RFK/ refusing to show up.

Poogs: Sure, i'm being condescending and offputting, but so are almost all of the other people who have made 7 figs sports betting I know who have posted on this forum so it's time for me to join the club and be condescending towards idiots. This thread is full of non-analytical emotions based garbage so far in 95% of posts, I haven't posted any serious analysis myself beyond 'Biden is slightly too long a price right now but I see no reason to get involved at this stage'. When I bet, i'll post and be on the record. People betting on Michelle Obama and stuff are stupid, but if they want to lose their money that's their business, sadly there's no value in laying the RFK drawing dead crowd even though he wouldn't be plus EV at a million to one let alone at the actual price. He literally wouldn't win the election if both major candidates died. Michelle Obama isn't running, was never running, and would not have even been the nominee if Biden had died lol, if she runs it will be announced early, at the start of a political cycle and with the full backing of the Obama machine. There is a 0% chance she is the nominee this cycle even if Biden dies.

Obviously I regularly interact with a ton of Americans, both Democrats and Republicans, in my general betting/life circles as a dual citizen, I was just posting some incremental experiences, obviously the fact that a high proportion of the Republicans (not all by any means) that I know personally are racist towards at least one minority is incremental and meaningless. I was just noting some fun experiences that have happened in my life. I also know plenty of non racist Republicans. Denying there is a serious percentage of the Republican base that is racist though is hilarious and naive. It's also irrelevant for betting purposes on the presidential election, just responding to Poogs since I actually respect Poogs in general.

Anyway, still not involved, value is still Biden side, although no reason to get involved at this stage really and tie up money i'm going to turn over a few dozen times before the election for no reason when we can bet later with more complete information and probably get even money on the right side or thereabouts close to the election. For what it's worth Biden can definitely lose and Trump can definitely win, but the market is wrong and anyone laying Biden at current Betfair prices is stupid when you'll be able to lay him at close to a coinflip at some stage if you're leaning that way. Same for people backing Trump now and tying up your money for months when you'll get a similar price post convention at some point.

Several other posters in thread have cooked takes on all sorts of nonsense but i'm not going to bother going over them individually, if you want to be stupid and make stupid bets go right ahead.

Any assessment that Trump wins the Presidency but loses the house and senate is absolutely ****ing cooked for what it's worth. Lol, no, that isn't going to happen more than a small single digit percentage of the time at most. We're literally more likely to end up with a Biden Presidency and Republican house/senate than the other way around, although, neither opposing side getting a clean sweep of the house and senate is particularly likely. A Trump presidency with D House and Senate is an insanely unlikely outcome though.

Anyone who still thinks Biden is secretly gonna be replaced as the Democratic nominee also needs to get off their Qanon cooker telegram channels lol

Anyway, still not involved this cycle, cya guys in a few months, this thread is still terrible and my posting would do nothing to change that at this stage lol

Just to be clear, I have not wagered on this election and probably will not. I am quite happily retired from active betting. IMO political betting is similar to sports betting in that markets are mostly efficient and even if they were not, with the long time frames in election betting it's a bad strategy to commit to an outcome happening and buy and hold based on that outcome. Or at least I should say I'm not smart enough to beat political markets that way. Much respect to the political masterminds such as Domer and others who have the insight to actually beat the markets. That's why I believe the right strategy is basically what I advocate for in the Fundamental Theorem of Political Betting. Just close your eyes and back whichever side is currently in the midst of a bad news cycle. The reality is that news cycles are mostly just hype driven by partisanship that rarely change people's minds. Bad news is eventually forgotten and replaced by the next bad news cycle. Prices will rebound to the mean and you end up with good prices that you can later sell off for a profit. Trump gets convicted? Buy Trump. Biden shits his pants on camera? Buy Biden. Of course, shop markets and buy the derivative contract that has the best available price. My point is, regardless of your personal beliefs, it should feel awful backing a particular candidate or you're not doing it right.

Thats a lot of what I did last cycle when I made a bunch of units betting on the election (I say units and not money because the limits were tiny but I cleaned up). Wait for a bad news cycle and pounce. Also, having PPH books that dont update their politcs odds at all helps a little bit too.

This been bothering for a bit now this is what I mean by liberal biases. Imagine yourself at the poker table as a poker pro. Every time a fish( bad reg too) suck you out you happily muck your hand. Most likely the opposite happen when a fish get suck out against elite pro. They show their hands and complain about how unlucky or unfair it is and other will nodded either because they themselves are fishes or the pro know what to do to make the fishes happy. Now there an imbalance in their mind of what is consider fair to the "fish". They will always tell stories of how unlucky they are in poker etc. Do you see any resemble to life as a democrat and republican?

Here is another story that sort of unrelate to U.S at all. I lived in Vietnam( I am Vietnamese American) for 7 years and married my wife who is Vietnamese. We travel to Thailand for vacation with other poker pro. Everywhere we went we would get bad service from Thais while my poker friend who is White and Korean get great service. I and my wife assume it due to us being Vietnamese and the Thais were racist and we would tell every one of our friends out experience ect. Then one day while talking with a couple who is Vietnamese and they had the opposite experience while traveling to Thailand. That is when it hit me that no the Thais weren't racist but it was me for dressing sort of shitty and expecting good service just because I am an American.

Fyi I grew up as a solid democrat. I bet on Hillary and I was rooting for Obama and I voted for Biden.

Not sure what point you're making but I like the analogies.

In my experience, most people deeply involved in politics are miserable SOBs. They relate everything to politics, have little ability for self-reflection, and generally behave badly toward people with whom they disagree.

So actually kind of similar to gambling. Good analogies after all.

This is absolutely accurate.

TomG makes a good point re if backing anything early it should usually be the dog side (of the two main presumptive candidates not random third party people or people who won't be the nominee) as it'll be a rare election where both candidates dont have moments when they're close to even money in today's polarised political environment

I'm sure this has been covered itt but does anyone use polymarket for political or current events betting?

seems better than predictit in that it has better liquidity and seems to have no fees? But I couldn't really find anything on the fees aspect on the site.

People can tell me if I'm wrong here, but I've always largely thought that the first debate is massively advantageous to the challenger unless you are living in utopian times. And even if you were, Americans wouldn't consider it that way anyway.

The challenger gets to say look at XYZ, that's this guys fault and all the incumbent can really do is sit there and talk about his half measure policies, how they're working hard, how he inherited a disaster and the challenger gets to nitpick every single policy to death and put all blame on him. In this case for Biden, that would be stuff like crime, border, inflation. Obviously incumbent can't say anything close to "Yeah jackass, when you're in the big seat it isn't that easy", nobody wants to hear that. The next guy will make it that easy.

Romney and Biden both did pretty well in their 1st debates vs the incumbents in 2012. In Sept/Oct 2020, there just wasn't much Trump could say about covid. In 2012, it was tough for Obama to sell that positive a message of the economy when still coming out of the GFC.

Obviously all Trump looming legal stuff could blow this up, but I think generally speaking he probably looks pretty good in the first debate and catches a bump there. So buying Trump would make more sense now and buying Biden if 1 were inclined to do so would make more sense after Trump debate W.

Don't really see Biden hitting anything out of the park wrt to debate. Everything he would want to say about Trump has been said already ad nauseam. Maybe in Sept when we're closer to the actual moment of truth.

I think your point is fair that it's easier for the challenger to just hammer away at negatives of the incumbent but the last 2 paragraphs are wrong imo.

Trumps legal stuff is kind of over now, like yeah he's got 3 cases left but none of them will be touched before the election. I guess the caveat to this would be if he's sentenced to jail next month but that seems very unlikely. His base doesn't seem to care about this case and if anything are more radicalised by it, so we just need to see if any fringe republicans or independents change their votes over it.

As for Biden in the debate, the thing is expectations are so low for him as long as he doesn't have a stroke on stage he'll do well. All he really has to do is stand up there and look mentally competent really.

Biden odds to drop out have moved from 14c to about 24c in a few weeks

Unless he absolutely bombs the 6/27 debate or has a major medical issue, can't really see this happening

Feels like one of those things true odds is closer to 5-10%

The chances of Biden dropping out are way way lower than everyone thinks they are. It's probably like 1 percent and most of the time he isn't the nominee is because he dies or gets a terminal diagnosis and both are quite unlikely despite his age. Biden is probably 1% or so to die, 1% or so to get a terminal diagnosis and drop out and 98% to be the nominee because those are the only two ways he won't be. Trump is probably pretty similar, 1% or so to die, 1% or so to get a terminal diagnosis and maybe with a 1% chance of dropping out due to legal issues getting substantially worse (but I expect he stalls the more serious cases until after the election though)

If anyone wants to lose their money betting that Biden will drop out at market price please lose it to me. Also if anyone wants to lose their money betting on Michelle Obama, RFK Jr or other equally stupid candidates happy to book the action as well

Chance of an American male aged 81 dying within the next year is about 6.4%. Biden seems much healthier than the average 81-year-old, so I'd cut that at least in half, say 3%. But it's not for a whole year; it's for five months. So I'd cut that in half again, say 1.5%.

I have no idea on terminal diagnosis, and I would note there is a reasonable chance that his handlers would just let him run anyway even if they learned he had stage four cancer, since they know it'd be suicide to drop him from the ticket in like October and replace him with... Kamala? Newsom? Buttchug? So what is that—1%?

I think why the odds of him dropping out skyrocketed is the Hunter Biden trial that started a few days ago. I haven't been following it, but what Joe and his son did is true corruption: Hunter—who doesn't speak Russian or Ukrainian, who has zero background in fossil fuels—was given a board seat at a Ukrainian gas company that paid him $80,000 a month, and Joe is on video bragging that he told Ukrainian leaders that if they didn't stop the investigation of this gas company that was paying Hunter, that Joe wouldn't send them US aid money. It's textbook corruption. And Hunter's business partner, Bobulinski, admitted that Joe is 'the big guy' referred to in a similar scheme with a Chinese energy company. (Who else could 'the big guy' possibly even be?) And there are texts of Hunter whining to family members that he has to send so much money to Joe, so there's no way that Joe is clean here. To be clear, the trial is on Hunter's gun charges, but it'll likely dredge up all the corruption stuff in the media, and just Hunter's lying on federal forms to possess a gun, or whatever he did, doesn't reflect well on Joe. Why people think this will make Joe drop out though is beyond me—the Republicans already tried to impeach Joe for the corruption stuff and held an inquiry, and it went nowhere. So I agree a double-digit percentage for Biden dropping out seems way too high.