I started this blog in 2020 basically to discuss the bets I had for the 2020 Presidential Election. You can go back and look if you want but I had an outstanding 'election cycle couple months', scooping up something like 40ish units if I remember correctly. I simply used Predictit as my Pinnacle, or the true line, and was betting on anything that was off-market with my PPH accounts. It was super fun, crazy profitable, and also really got me more into the news cycle. I was more on top of that election cycle than ever before, by a wide margin. And you might have noticed this year I haven't talked about it at all. The reason is simple, really, and is indicative of the biggest downside of PPH betting, which is that I ran out of places to play. Every account I had in 2020 that I used for politics is long gone, and the only one that I still have took down their political section entirely (along with props, team totals, stock market bets, horse racing, video game bets, etc. I can only play straights there). So even though I don't have any action personally, let's take a good look at the political landscape in general and see how the betting markets are looking, especially after the past couple weeks.
For starters, Predicit.org is still the go-to place for political betting. They have literally hundreds of millions of shares/dollars being traded on their site, 24/7. Super liquid, super efficient. Like I said, think of them like Pinnacle for politics, if not even better. So anytime I refer to the market or the true line, I'm usually talking about Predictit's prices. However, since 2020, a new competitor has emerged on the prediction market called Polymarket. From their site: "Polymarket is a decentralized information markets platform that lets people trade real-money markets on the outcomes of the most-highly debated current events, and follow the odds to garner accurate insights about the future. Users buy or sell Outcome Shares, which can be redeemed for $1 if the outcome is resolved as correct, and become worthless if it’s incorrect. Owners of outcome shares are never locked in and can sell their position at any time." Polymarket is essentially the same thing as Predictit with one important distinction. Polymarket uses crypto whereas Predictit uses dollars. This has a subtle but, I think, important point. Polymarket probably skews younger and definitely more tech-savy. Something to keep in mind.
Polymarket is also bigger in general. For example, for the 2024 presidential election winner, $233.8 million has been wagered on Polymarket, whereas 20.4 million shares have been traded on Predictit. So Poly might be the more liquid market but Predictit is probably the more well-known. It'll be interesting to see where the two disagree.
Anyway, let's take a look at where things stand on both sites for some of the bigger markets and see how they changed over the past couple weeks with the debate and Bidens ABC interview in the rear view mirror.
As of today (July 8th), the odds on Predicit for the winner of the 2024 Presidential Election are: Trump in the lead at 58%, Biden and Kamala tied for second at 23%, and Newsom in fourth at 6%. On polymarket, Trump is even further ahead at 63%. Biden is second at 16% and Kamala is third at 12%. (Michelle Obama is fourth at 4%). On June 26th on Predictit, one day before the debate, Trump was 55%, Biden was 45%, and Kamala was 4%. The total volume bet was a tiny $51k. On June 27th, the day of the debate, Trump went up to 58%, Biden fell to 33% and Kamala got a bump up to 7%. The total volume bet was $542k, over ten times the day before. Now, here is where things get interesting. On June 29th, two days after the debate, Trump remained at 58% but Biden dropped even more, to 29%, whereas Kamala went all the way up to 14%. It seems to me that the prediction markets largely priced in that Joe Biden is essentially a walking corpse and the debate performance wasn't really news. However, what the markets didn't price in was the fact that the Democratic voter base didn't know that. Which I find shocking. Half the country seemed to have been aware that the president literally has dementia and the other half thought it was nothing more than a 'conspiracy theory' (or my new favorite phrase that everyone is pretending is a real thing: the videos were "cheap fakes." The phrase they're trying to use is 'deep fake', but since we're in complete clown world, KJP said 'cheap fake' and now everyone is just going with that?)
July 3rd was another big day on Predictit which saw $507k in volume in this market. Trump remained at 58% but Biden dropped again down to 25% and Kamala got bet up to 21%. Since then, Kamala has risen a little bit to about 23%, and Biden has dropped to 22, 23%.
On Polymarket, Trump was 60% going into the debate and has bounced around from 60 to 67% since. Biden was 34% going into the debate, dropped to 22% right after it, dropped all the way to 8% on July 3rd, and has since rebounded a little bit, climbing to 16, 17% currently as of July 8th. Kamala was 1% going into the debate, rose to 5% right after it, rose to 17% on July 3rd, got as high as 20%, and is currently about 12% as of July 8th.
One thing that stands out right away is the relatively big discrepancy in price between the sites. With hundreds of millions dollars in play, you'd think the prices would be essentially identical but we can clearly see that's not the case. I think it goes to show, among other things, how difficult it is to predict something like this. I think it also shows that younger crypto friendly guys support Trump over Biden which isn't surprising. The amount of discrepancy is somewhat surprising to me though. Predictit has Kamala at almost double the price as Polymarket (12% vs 23%). That's a pretty big difference. There's obviously some arbitrage opportunities between the two sites but I'll leave that up to you to decide if it's something you want to do.
Now, about that "debate." I honestly thought it was one of the single most embarrassing moments in recent American history. With so much going on right now on the world stage. Russia vs Ukraine, World War 3 bubbling, Israel vs Hamas, China threatening Taiwan, inflation rampaging still, Sudan, Yemen, Houthi pirates, the collapse of respect and trust in all American institutions...I mean the list goes on. And to see our commander in chief is literally a guy you wouldn't trust to run a cash register at an ice cream shop is unnerving, to say the least. Would you let Joe Biden watch your kids around for an hour? Would you trust him to drive a car? Do you think he could do 9 times 7 in real time? Seriously. I'm not going to go on and on with my political takes. There's more than enough of that to go around and it's pretty clear where I stand. I just think it is such a bad look for our country and I think Jill Biden might be one of the most power hungry, evil people alive right now. It really is hard to comprehend everything going on right now at the top of the Dem ticket.
*UPDATE*
I started writing this post on July 8th. I usually crank these out in one shot but sometimes I let em marinate for a few days. Well now, today, July 11th, there have been some big, interesting moves. They're actually happening literally right now, about 2:00 PM EST. Kamala Harris is really getting bet up to be the nomination, as is "Will there be a woman president elected in 2024" and other related markets. So let's dive in real quick.
For the main market of "Who will win the 2024 US presidential election" on Predictit, Trump is still way in the lead at 59%. He's been fairly static there for the past month, rising slightly from 51% on June 11th to a high of 62% yesterday and down to 59% currently.
Biden has been steadily falling since the debate on June 27th. He was 45% on June 26th, and is now all the way down to 18%. He was JUST flipped by Kamala literally an hour ago. She is now 26% and rising and Biden is 18% and dropping. With high volume, too.
For the market: "Who will win the Democratic nomination", Kamala is really steaming up right now, all the way to 47%. Biden has fallen all the way to 36%.
Polymarket has roughly the same movement going on. They have Kamala at 19% to win the election and Biden only at 10%! They also have Kamala at 43% to win the nomination and Biden at 37%.
Like I said up top, I don't have any action going this cycle which stinks. Biden is supposed to do a press conference tonight and I'm thinking that's when they'll announce it. We'll see. I'll probably have some kind of update soon, maybe even tomorrow. I wanted to write more about crypto and stocks and some books but I'm gonna get this out there now before even more stuff moves. Check back soon!
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