U.S. Presidential Election 2020

Bookies offering 50/1 for a Trump win. Probably worth a tenner on that for all you pessimists!

I’ll have some of that. Where did you see it? Best I can see is 5/1.

The best available are no better than 15/8.
A 4 way accumulator at William Hill, using odds at 2pm and based on £20 stake will return £2,504:
– Biden to win
– Dems to take presidency, win senate and hold house
– Biden to win 360 – 389 electoral college votes
– trump to win 150 – 179 electoral college votes

I’ll have some of that. Where did you see it?

On my FB feed but as above, I didn’t read the small print.

Probably worth doing that then, not nearly as good an offer as it seems!

It is feeling very 2016 again. Voter enthusiasm is at odds with most of the polls.

I’m feeling more than a bit pessimistic about the result 😟
Can’t help feeling the underlying support among the Trump faction will come out in droves where it counts whereas the Biden faction may pay too much attention to the polls that put them ahead in the same places and as a result may be less inclined to get out as they think they’ve got it in the bag….

I really hope I’m wrong, and the figures are a bit / lot stronger for Biden, but all ( nearly ) polls gave 2016 to Hillary, and look what happened then.
Trump may be a has been bankrupt, in it for himself and really not all bothered with the well being of the country at large
BUT
He does know how to spin a yarn and fool a lot of the people a lot of the time 😢

The best available are no better than 15/8.

That in itself is pretty worrying. I’d assumed the odds would be much longer than that from the way everyone’s been talking. 😕

I guess it’s only a two horse race, but still…

I guess it’s only a two horse race, but still…

People on the ground (as opposed to those quoting polls) think so.

It’s certainly doable for trump

He lost the popular vote by 3 million last time but still got it!

The swing states will be crucial

That’s why he & the republicans will be throwing everything they can at voter suppression and disqualifying postal votes etc – he’s spent a year undermining them!

As ever with Trump, there’s no real low bar he wont cross, no matter how damaging it is to the USA (parallels with cummings/brexit abound)

That in itself is pretty worrying. I’d assumed the odds would be much longer than that from the way everyone’s been talking.

Bookies odds aren’t a reflection of how likely something is. They are a reflection of how much money they are going to lose if you win. That’s why odds change all the time as people bet, when the chances of whatever it is stay the same.

No, they are a reflection of both. I used to work for William Hill molgrips 😉

Edit: ignore that, I’m confusing myself.

On that accumulator at William Hill. I always like a small bet on these things, and thought that’s worth a punt

However on their site (laptop and mobile) there’s no option for accumulator (there is for footie etc). Am I doing something wrong or has that window closed?

An advice appreciated!

Cheers

Anyone listen to Jenna Ellis defending Trump’s “poll watchers” on Americast? Utterly staggering. 🤪

I would say it’s technically not an accumulator as the events are related, will probably be some kind of special market. I can’t check cos I’ve blocked gambling sites on my laptop!

No, they are a reflection of both. I used to work for William Hill molgrips

Well yes but surely the probability of something happening is rolled up into the bookie’s exposure, no?

And given we don’t know how many people have placed bets on an outcome, we as punters can’t disentangle the probability from the exposure, can we?

Not trying to mansplain to you, genuinely curious – I may not bet myself but I find this kind of game theory rather interesting.

The initial odds offered by bookmakers are based on calculated probability of results from various bits of data, with some ‘house edge’ margin added on to give their profit (over many many many bets, over a long time).

So if they reckon if a particular match was played 10 times one team would win only 1 of the games, the actual odds of that team winning one match are 10/1 they reckon, but they will give you odds of say 8.5/1, so there is 15% ‘value’ in that bet for the bookie, evened out by effectively being repeated thousands/millions of times.

If lots and lots of people go for the same bet, they need to reduce their exposure on that bet winning so they reduce the odds from their starting point. This is why betting on England in football is always stupid as they have short odds from ‘patriotic’ betting.

In horse racing and greyhounds they also have flagged accounts with notes such as ‘connected to x trainer’, and when the punter rings up wanting £20k on a 50/1 chance they pretty much immediately slash the odds while they all scramble to quickly stick a bet on that horse with another bookie on their phone. 😛

Guys, Trump is getting 51% of white vote. McCain lost with 55%. Romney and Trump got 59%.

This isn’t going to be close. https://t.co/CUB1xeBhzy

— stuart stevens (@stuartpstevens) November 2, 2020

5/1 on a Republican clean sweep. Bet placed!

If Trump wins I think I will lose all faith in humanity how can someone be so bad at their job but still win… Actually Boris seems to have managed it. What ever way this goes I really go think its gonna be all out riots in the states people wont be happy so this so much built up frustration, anger, hurt and hate on both sides its never going to end well.

a Republican clean sweep

What’s that? The House, the Senate and the White House? Or is there another element?

They are already saying it might look like Trump is ahead from the early results that come in and they plan to declare victory and employ lawyers to try and stop counting the rest of the ballots. He’s admitted the second part openly to the press. That’s also part of the plan to make it look like the Dems have stolen the election to their rabid, armed mass of supporters.

These are truly scary times.

and employ lawyers to try and stop counting the rest of the ballots

How can they do that in a “free” country?

How can they do that in a “free” country?

Hillary in an interview a month ago said their strategy is to not let Biden concede and have an army of lawyers ready to fight in the courts.

Trump is planning on established law being enforced. The evil genius.

Keep in mind that, while it’s possible that the polling error favours Biden and Trump might squeak out a narrow electoral college victory if he can win Florida and Pennsylvania, it’s just as possible that the polling error favours Trump. Biden has as much chance of winning Texas, giving him a landslide victory, as Trump does of winning Pennsylvania.

We have Biden down 2 points on average v Trump in Texas. That's well inside the range of normal state-level polling errors (~9-10 points). Plus, with so large a shift in the electorate there v 2016, I wouldn't be surprised at all if he ended up winning.https://t.co/Q4Lj30OfOv

— G. Elliott Morris (@gelliottmorris) November 1, 2020

Trump is planning on established law being enforced.

Utter rubbish. The established law is that individual states are responsible for holding elections to appoint voters to the Electoral College. In some states, only votes that are received by election day are counted, in others, votes that are postmarked by election day are accepted. One of the major reasons for this is that military personnel serving overseas may face delays in having their ballots delivered.

Final vote counts are neither possible nor required on election day. The definitive tally of votes won’t be known until every eligible vote is counted, which may take a week or more (following the applicable state law). In many cases (California, for example), the margin for one party is so overwhelming that late ballots cannot possibly change the outcome. In that case, an unofficial result will be published by newspapers, but the official result is never, ever announced on election day (because that’s the law). If enough states have big margins like that, the overall winner will be obvious the next day, so the traditional thing is for the losing candidate to concede and let everyone get on with things.

What Trump is trying to claim is that only votes that are counted on election day should be accepted, i.e. that no late votes should be accepted, regardless of the law. That is absolutely not a valid legal position, there’s no serious question about that. He knows it’s bollocks, but it serves to rile up his supporters and gives him a rationale for refusing to concede, even if it’s blindingly obvious that he’s lost. Nothing to do with the law, just a desperate attempt to avoid acknowledging that he is a loser.

The Red Mirage

Worth a read.

In summary mail in votes skew a little toward Democrats but the main difference is the huge disparity between urban and rural areas. Rural areas, with fewer people have the votes counted much quicker than urban areas. Urban areas skew massively toward Democrats.

In states like Pennsylvania where they don’t allow ballots to be processed ahead of election day this is a huge issue as it could take more than a week to count all the votes.

Trump declares himself the winner and calls all the “late” votes fraudulent.

Its almost guaranteed, what is interesting is how it will play out.

After police attacks in Graham NC and MAGA attempt at running Biden bus off road in Texas – a piece on why Trump world is acting so manic. What's on the line in 2020 is a generation of political dominance. Latest in @TheAtlantic https://t.co/fyRy0y1ACu

— David Frum (@davidfrum) November 1, 2020

Can someone explain how to get odds/place a bet for an accumulator like the one mentioned above? I’ve never gambled before.
I’d just go into the betting shop but all 10 on my street have shut down! 2020 sure is wacky

At William hill on the betting page scroll down past the sports and look at US presidential elections #yourodds

And given we don’t know how many people have placed bets on an outcome, we as punters can’t disentangle the probability from the exposure, can we?

Well you won’t know how much people have bet via the bookies, but if there’s a market for it on a betting exchange, then you should be able to see exactly how much money has been backed and layed at each price, both matched an unmatched.
Betfair exchange here seemed to have politics and the US election markets listed, but showed no markets for me (but then I’m in Germany where afaik betting exchanges are “banned”, rather than UK where they are big business). I imagine it’s a shed load of $, £ and € bet, and rather liquid too.

all 10 on my street have shut down!

You should have supported your local betting shops a bit more. The whole industry is struggling due to the unfair decision to stop it taking a week’s wages off some poor addict every five minutes. 🙂

New Monmouth poll of Pennsylvania:

Biden 51%
Trump 44%

That's in a high turnout model. In a low turnout scenario it's:

Biden 50%
Trump 45%https://t.co/ZmkQ4nzit2

— Greg Sargent (@ThePlumLineGS) November 2, 2020

It's interesting to note, as we wait to see who will have the electoral votes to win the Presidency, that pretty much everyone understands that of course Biden will win the popular vote. We no longer even think about whether those two will match. Legally correct, but so weird.

— Orin Kerr (@OrinKerr) November 2, 2020

At William hill on the betting page scroll down past the sports and look at US presidential elections #yourodds

I’ve tried this. It’ll let you place multiple bets, but no option for an accumulator (which it gave when I tried a load of bets on football to see if it would be an option).

Can only assume that the poster who mentioned it hadnt actually tried to place it, but had just done the maths on what a payout would be (it’s a process of multiplying the odds against each other). I placed a couple of bets anyway and hedged with their sign-up offer of a £50 credit (10 £5 bets) for an unsuccessful £1 bet on Trump to win.

Anyone who takes the Republican clean sweep option is nuts btw, that means Reps win President and control of Senate and House. Whatever else happens there is no way that the GOP will take control of the house, no way!

As above it’s not really an accumulator like football matches IMO because the outcome of one is related to the likely outcome of the others.

There’s an option there for clean sweep, but it’s 4/1 now not 5/1

I think if it wasn’t for 2016 and all the other surprising bullshit that’s happened in the last 10 years, we’d be talking about how big Biden’s win will be. He’s 10 points ahead nationally and at least possibly going to win in Texas, which would be unthinkable at any other time.

The Democrats have done what they needed to, okay Biden isn’t Bernie or Corbyn so those of a very left of centre persuasion think he’s worse than Trump, but he’s not.

Is he too old, probably, is he slightly handicapped by his Brain injuries, maybe, but it’s not like Trump is completely sane or even of average intelligence. More importantly, is he White, Middle-Class and Folksy? Yes he is, so he nullifies a lot of Trumps rhetoric. Like it or not, Americans are generally racist, it’s a racist country. They have very sharp racial lines.

I think Biden will win, the Democrats are downplaying their chances because they don’t want it to seem too easy lest millions of voters decide they don’t need to vote. The bigger questions are:

Will Trump go quietly, I mean obviously he won’t. He certainly won’t concede, he doesn’t have the backbone to admit he’s lost, there will be accusation of fraud, conspiracy theories, probably court action the lot, but will he actually leave the White House in January?

Will the Democrats win congress? Obama, as great a statesman as he was, didn’t achieve nearly as much as he could, because the Democrats couldn’t pass laws.

Anyone who takes the Republican clean sweep option is nuts btw, that means Reps win President and control of Senate and House. Whatever else happens there is no way that the GOP will take control of the house, no way!

Exactly. Trump might have a 10% chance of winning, Republicans might have a 35% chance of holding the Senate, but Democrats probably have a 99% chance of retaining the House. That means a 3.5% chance of having the Senate and White House, but a 0.035% chance of all three. That’s assuming they’re independent, which they’re not, but it’s getting too close to E-Day for things like terrorist attacks to drive voters to change their minds. That leaves polling error as the most likely reason for Republicans to win against the polls, but the polling errors will tend to be more independent. Short version, putting money on Republicans winning all three is basically just burning money. You’d need odds of 5000 to 1 to make it worthwhile.

those of a very left of centre persuasion think he’s worse than Trump,

No, they do not.

That’s also part of the plan to make it look like the Dems have stolen the election to their rabid, armed mass of supporters.

The armed mass supporters… they are just gun voyeurs, they show and tell, they bring their guns and to show you and tell you that they will do this or that, but in reality the moment the majority use them in anger will be the end of that type of gun ownership in the US, and they know it.