Vice President Kamala Harris vaulted past former President Donald Trump to become the bookmaker’s favourite to win the election on Tuesday night, after a strong showing in the first presidential debate.
US Vice President and Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris speaks at a watch party after a presidential debate with former US President and Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump at the Cherry Street Pier in Philadelphia.
AFP via Getty Images
Key Takeaways
- According to the Election Betting Odds tracker, which consolidates betting numbers from four separate markets, bookmakers now believe Harris has a 51.8% chance of winning compared to Trump’s 46.9%.
- This is a major shift in favour of Harris, whose chances have risen by more than four and a half points in the past 24 hours, while Trump’s have plummeted by four.
- Bettors on crypto-based betting platform Polymarket—who heavily favored a Trump win in the past two weeks—now believe both Harris and Trump have a 49% chance of winning.
- On the British betting site Smarkets, bookmakers predict that Harris now has a 51.55% chance of winning—up from 47.5% last week—while Trump’s odds have dropped to 46.3%.
- On PredictIt, the only platform where bettors gave Harris better odds than Trump before the debate, the vice president expanded her lead and now has odds of 56 cents per share (roughly equating to a 56% chance) compared to Trump’s 47 cents per share.
Surprising Fact
While the betting markets believe the election remains fairly close, this is a strong consensus among bettors that Harris won the debate. Polymarket bookmakers believe Harris has a 98% chance of being judged the winner of Tuesday night’s debate in consolidated post-debate snap polls.
Big Number
2.7%. That is the size of Harris’ lead over Trump in national polls, according to FiveThirtyEight’s weighted average.
Tangent
Unlike the other betting markets, PredictIt only allows participation by U.S. residents who are 18 or older. Earlier this year, the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) proposed a ban on all election-related betting in the U.S. derivatives market.
The agency’s proposal came after being sued by PredictIt for trying to shut down the platform from taking bets on the presidential race—after previously allowing it.
