I'll tell ya, it really has been pretty fun taking on these new markets. I'm probably running a little bit hot but either way, the results have been very encouraging. Who would have thought? Having some of my best results lately in a time when no sports are even on. And I say encouraging because it's been really, really nice to have a lot of what I always thought to be true about markets and trading in general get reaffirmed. I've been doing this in one form or another for almost two full decades now and like most people (I assume), I always felt a twinge of 'imposter syndrome'. Even when I was doing this full time for a few years and it was my sole income, I never quite felt like a "real professional sports bettor." My models are rudimentary and I've always been in low-limit-prop-lowest-hanging-fruit land. I've come to terms that my edge doesn't come from superior math or data knowledge or slick modeling and being able to beat widely available lines, but rather it's my networking ability to find (and stay at) soft accounts, plus my all around trading skills. These past few months have given me a lot of confidence that my overall approach and general theory towards betting/trading is sound and carries over from market to market. Like I said earlier and have said before, really understanding market theory is more important than anything when it comes to trading. Because it's ubiquitous: (sick word) it can make you money on stocks, in sports, in politics and anywhere else where more than one person/place is offering to take a bet on the same thing.
That's enough sucking my own dick for now though. Let's update my entire slate of politics bets:
To Win Presidency
Bernie: risk 2.6u to win 16u (+600)
Biden: risk 6u to win 20u (+330)
Trump/republican: risk 16u to win 12.6u (-129)
Current Market Odds
Trump: 50%
Biden: 40%
Andrew Cuomo(?!): 5%
Bernie: 4%
Trump has rebounded a little bit over the past 2 weeks and like I said I would, I closed up my positions on him when I saw his price start to climb. I still was only able to get him at -115 but even those prices have all disappeared. So my final position here looks like this: if Biden wins I win about 1.5 units and if Trump wins I win 4. Pretty close to my original plan to free roll on Trump and I might add a little more on him if I can get good numbers. As it stands now though, as long as it's Biden or Trump I win either way. Decent spot to be in. Cuomo came out of nowhere but I dont think anyone is really taking that seriously.
Democrat Nomination
Biden: risk 10.5u to win 12u (+110)
Bernie: risk .8u to win 4u (+470)
Current Market Odds
Biden: 75%
Bernie: 10%
Cuomo: 8%
This is basically in the bag but it is a little scary to see Bidens number slowly slipping the past couple weeks. There's been some chatter of replacing him, especially after a news article came out where a "high level source inside the DNC" called him a 'melting ice cube' (vicious). His team seems to be actively hiding him as he is an absolute gaffe machine. He's been trying these little online interview/general address sessions where I guess he's pretending he's president already. But they've been disasters so far. He doesn't know when hes on, he looks old as fuck, theres a lot of him just staring blankly off screen and the most damning thing is the last thing he did got UNDER 700 total views! That's worldwide, the presumptive Democrat nominee to be President, at a time when everyone is locked inside. Imagine how many people would watch Trump or even Bernie doing a live broadcast from their house. Videos of literal 10 year olds opening video games get like 100 times the views that Biden is getting. So you can see how 'melting ice cube' is fitting. I'm probably going to stay pat here unless there's a big move on Biden either way. If it's anyone but Bernie or Biden, which seemed impossible a few weeks ago but now not so much, I take a near 12 unit bath. So that's not good. I really don't see that happening though and another thing I read that makes sense is that Biden has been hiding a little bit because he doesn't want to further piss off Bernie. Bernie hasn't dropped out yet and if Biden starts going around assuming he's the nominee, it could anger Bernie and his Bros even more and possibly enough to make them stay home come election time. Biden is still a massive favorite to win the remaining primaries, but with a lot of them being delayed there still is time for things to change. I'm holding steady here but ready to bail out if I have to.
To Win Popular Vote
Republicans: risk 1.9u to win 4.6u (+250)
Market odds: 32%
Slightly better than market price on this one. Not much to talk about here, basically break even EV wise.
To Win Dem Vice President Nomination
Klobuchar: risk 3u to win 19u (+630)
Warren: risk 1.5u to win 25u (+1600)
Harris: risk 3u to win 8.4u (+280)
Baldwin: risk .3u to win 10u (+3500)
Buttieg: risk .4u to win 5.6u (+1480)
Abrams: risk .75u to win 4.8u (+640)
G. Whitmer: risk .9u to win 7u (+740)
Market Odds:
Harris: 27%
Klobuchar: 26%
G. Whitmer: 14%
Cortez Masto: 10%
Abrams: 8%
Warren: 6%
Baldwin: 3%
This has been the market to watch for me. I think I got a little trigger happy here and ended up with more total at risk than I wanted to. I've been team Klobuchar for a while now and if she wins I win over 10u. If its Warren I win a huge chunk too, if its Baldwin I break even, and if its Harris or Whitmer I lose a little. Anyone else and I get scooped completely. So I'm really not thrilled with my position here to be honest. But let's take a deep dive into this market where I think I may have uncovered A CONSPIRACY!
Here's everything we know so far: Biden has committed to a woman, he's said "the leadership of this country should reflect the people in this country", the House Majority Whip (who is super important and has endorsed Biden) Jim Clyburn has 'urged Biden to pick a black woman', and he talked to Obama about who to pick. That's all pretty common knowledge.
But after doing some digging I found a couple sneaky good articles that had some really good info. The 'inside scoop' right now seems to be that Biden has a short list comprised of Klobuchar, Warren and Kamala Harris. He's also been open about the number one thing he's considering in all this is that the VP needs to be able to take over as President on day one. That's actually a pretty shocking thing to say for an incoming nominee but it makes sense. Everyone knows Bidens best days are behind him (he'll be 78 in November. 78!) and his running mate will have a higher than normal chance of taking over as President. And we all remember how much a bad/inexperienced VP can effect a nominee (Sarah Palin anyone?) So experience here is a must. That bodes well for Klobuchar the most in my opinion, but Warren and Harris aren't exactly new to the scene either.
A lot of people think Biden needs to pick a black woman to carry the black vote but that honestly don't really make sense. Biden already kills it with black people, especially older black people. And from what I can gather, black people don't exactly love the former federal prosecutor Kamala Harris, either. I think it's also a pretty condescending and down right racist way to think too, that black people will just mindlessly vote for Biden if he has a black VP. I dont think thats the case and I think that's an example of the insufferable leftist blue checkmark brigade on twitter being overly loud and wrong about something (shocking, I know.)
Another huge knock against Harris is how badly she attacked Biden early on. She called him racist right to his face in a national TV debate. I've also heard that Bidens wife, Jill Biden, hates Kamala Harris and any guy knows how that's kind of a sneaky big deal (though I did also read how insiders refute the Jill Biden/Harris angle and say its been overblown and more the product of rumors than anything else which could be true. But in my experience where theres smoke theres fire).
Klobuchar really seems like the best bet here, in my opinion. She checks every box: an experienced State governor with a great track record, she looks and 'seems' presidential, she endorsed Biden at the single most opportune time possible for him, AND has "let it slip" a few times that Biden has promised her something. Except one thing: shes white. And do the Dems really want to roll out another old, straight, white person ticket? (I think it really sucks honestly how much this stuff matters but you'd be beyond naive to think it doesnt). She is the front runner in my mind and from everything I can gather, a lot of people agree.
The talk around the online water cooler (various forums, articles and comment sections, which by the way, are unbelievably under rated sources for info. Everyone thinks online commentating is a cess pool of racist noise but trust me, it isn't. I'll actually get into this a lot more in a different post) is that Harris's price is way over valued on Predictit. And it got me thinking...her price moves on there have been suspect. For almost an entire month now, her price has been almost EXACTLY 1 cent better than Klobuchars, sometimes 2. Every time Klob gets a bump, Harris gets one soon after and always just one or two cents better. Even when Klob dips, Harris seems to do the same. This has me thinking about something I've LONG thought about; is Harris and her team betting on herself and artificially driving her price up??
Like Ive said before, PredictIt.com is no joke. There are hundreds of millions of dollars in individual markets, never mind whats in action across the total platform. Their odds are discussed and referenced quite often in political news, especially on twitter. If a candidate surges on there, it'll make news, even without any other concrete reason. So it definitely benefits a candidate to have a good showing on PredictIt. So why not just bet a ton on yourself and move the price? With all the hundreds of millions of dollars campaigns spend, why not put a few million on yourself on PredictIt? Mike Bloomberg spent 500 million on a campaign he knew hed lose. I think if he put even a fraction of that on himself winning across betting sites it would have been more effective than whatever the fuck he did spend it on. Plus, while it sounds sketchy as hell, I dont know of any law that says you cant do that. So is that happening now with Kamala Harris? Is she artificially pumping herself? If I had to guess honestly Id say no but it is absolutely not out of the question and I would be shocked if it hasnt happened before. Her price history is odd and unique though so obviously this will be something I'll continue to keep a close eye on.
Lastly, I added Grethen Whitmer this other day at +750. She's a dark horse who came out of nowhere but shes as high as 14% and climbing. Shes ahead of everyone except Harris and Klobuchar all of a sudden. Whitmer is the governor of Michigan and if youve been under a rock lately, she and Trump have been GOING AT IT online which you know the Dems love. She doesn't back down. She's basically been auditioning for the job lately, making all kinds of appearances and speeches about Corona virus and medical equipment (good gauge of new donor interest btw is a sudden spike in TV appearances). The general consensus around her seems to be unanimously positive and by all accounts she is handling the current crisis well. She has that woman presidential look that Hilary could never quite get (all business but sneaky sexy. Smiley and sincere but not dopey) and she comes across great on TV. Biden even mentioned her a while ago when talking publicly about his VP (called her 'that governor from Michigan"). Normally I would say this looks like a classic flash in the pan but I dunno. Theres a few select commentators I really like and theyre all over her. I took a flyer just to break even if it does end up being her. Id have liked to bet more but Im really up against the max bet on a lot of these books. Plus the deletion book is dead to me so I am really running out of places to get down on these (hence why getting new accounts all the time is the single most important thing in all of this).
So that's it for everything pending politically right now. Actually I still have those tiny bets on Hilary and Bloomberg to win the presidency but I'm counting those as losses already. The stock bets settle on Monday (I thought it was Friday for some reason. Im bad with dates/months things) and it looks like I'm gonna win literally every single one. I've been getting down on these little nibbles on where the Dow and S&P will close every other day which has been more free money, but the limits are tiny and the bets come and settle quickly so I wont include those bets on here.
Check back Monday or Tuesday for a stock update and HOPEFULLY some new stock market bets. See you guys soon, thank you for reading!
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