When it comes to the predictions of political pundits, sports bettors kicked the butts of everyone this U.S. presidential election.
Bettors have been pouring their money on Republican candidate Donald Trump to win the presidential election since the very beginning. More commonly known political pundits meanwhile, like prediction entity FiveThirtyEight, all but cast aside Trump as recently as September. The site’s co-founder Nate Silver was then giving Trump around a mere 5 percent chance to be the nominee which equates to around 20/1 odds.
Sportsbooks? They had Trump pegged at 3-1 back in August to be the GOP nominee.
“We had Trump at 150-1 (to win the whole election) when we first posted odds on this around a year and a half ago. Every $10 is $1,500 – it doesn’t take big money for that to add up pretty quickly,” said sportsbook manager Kevin Bradley.
That left sportsbooks chopping odds to reduce liability which left them well ahead of the pack when it came to predicting what political pundits just couldn’t bring themselves to see: Trump has a real shot.
Trump became the clear favorite to be the Republican nominee in January when he moved to +150 on Jan. 5th. Those odds look enviable now where a $100 wager would reap a $150 return. Fast-forward to the end of May where sportsbooks have stopped offering odds on Trump to win the Republican nomination altogether after John Kasich and Ted Cruz dropped out.
Trump was -800 in early May and even that couldn’t stop the money from pouring in. He was as big as +750 back in August.
“We are going to need Hillary big,” says Bradley.
Bradley compared the outcome of this event to being as massive as the Super Bowl for, which is just straightjacket crazy when you consider the presidential election is usually little more than a laughable prop bet that trails at the bottom of the oddsmaker’s list.
Usually the entire presidential election wouldn’t garner the attention of a regular season NFL game in the betting world. Now as June 7th’s primaries approach, sports bettors holding Trump tickets are salivating like it’s the fourth quarter of the Super Bowl and their Cleveland Browns futures bet actually has a chance.
On the Democrat side of things, Hillary Clinton is of course the favorite to win the nomination. She’s at -1500 while Bernie Sanders is 15-1 and Joe Biden is close to 30-1.
Clinton is currently at -185 to win the presidential election while Trump is listed at +210.
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