Odds on Donald Trump profitable US election soar to 62% hours after polls open as Americans pile in on The Don beating Kamala

Punters have piled in on Donald Trump winning the 2024 presidential election, with odds of a Republican victory standing at 62 percent on one betting platform. 

On platforms like Polymarket and Kalshi, billions of crypto dollars are chasing bets on presidential candidates Trump and Kamala Harris.

Those sites respectively gave Trump about a 62 percent to 38 percent and 59 percent to 41 percent lead over Harris a few hours after polls opened this morning, in contrast to neck-and-neck opinion polls.

Polymarket, the busiest of these platforms, which have largely sprung up over the past five years, has seen about $3.2billion in trading volume on wagers on the winner of the presidential vote.

Kalshi, a U.S. CFTC-regulated site, has seen $241million in trading on its election outcome contract. Its second-largest betting contract, on the electoral college margin, has drawn $45million.

According to Kalshi, people bet on Trump being ahead in key battleground states like North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Nevada and Georgia. 

According to Betfair Predicts, Trump is tipped for victory, with odds 61.73 percent in his favour. Betfair’s data suggests Trump is also set to take swing states Pennsylvania, Arizona, Georgia, Nevada and North Carolina.

In the UK, £192million ($250million) staked on who will win, with £129million ($168million) riding on Trump and just £48million ($64million) on ex-prosecutor Harris. 

Among those who placed bets on Trump was streamer Adin Ross, who wagered $1million on the former president winning the 2024 election, after previously hosting a livestream with Trump at Mar-a-Lago in August.

Yesterday, voters told DailyMail.com who they’d put their money on between Trump and Harris to win the election. 

As a billboard in Times Square showed live, real-time bets being placed on the election, we asked people walking through The Crossroads of the World who they’d gamble their cash on.

While many were skeptical of using their own money, one man confessed to already having put $1,200 on a Trump victory.

A couple of other voters did say Harris but had to be qualified with them either already supporting her or using someone else’s money.

‘I think I’ll put around like, $1,500 for Trump,’ said another, only to be jabbed by his friend who said he didn’t have the money for it.

Another even said they’d put $2,000 on Trump but a majority of people didn’t see betting on either candidate as a wise investment. 

Participants and watchers are divided over whether such betting markets, where prices offered are shaped by the weight of the bets, are a robust leading indicator for the outcome of the election or are distorted by large bets and reflect the views of a niche crypto club.

Elon Musk, for one, has said betting markets are ‘more accurate than polls, as actual money is on the line’ and mainstream news sites are citing their odds. 

Tarek Mansour, CEO of Kalshi, said bettors are a more accurate indication of the result than the polls because they have ‘skin in the game.’

He told DailyMail.com: ‘We should definitely trust the [wagering] markets. Prediction markets are places where people have money on the line. People don’t lie with their money.’

In 2016 the polls indicated Hillary Clinton would easily defeat Trump, but were wrong. 

In the past betting markets have proved successful in predicting the outcome of elections. However, like the polls, they were not a good indicator in 2016.

Many people aren’t convinced, though. 

‘Your average voter isn’t spending time or money on prediction markets – those platforms are being dominated by crypto-native users, and those users are voting for Trump,’ said Michael Cahill, CEO of Web3-focused developer Douro Labs.

A court ruling in October had opened up gambling on the vote for the first time, upping the stakes on the too-close-to-call race that has already put voters on edge.

Voters now appear to be turning to bets for predictions on the election outcome after polls put Trump and Harris neck-and-neck.  

A final key poll revealed that Harris entered Election Day with a 4-point lead over Trump after slashing the gender gap.

Harris, 60, has the support of 51 percent of likely voters, according to the latest PBS News/NPR/Marist poll. Trump has support from 47 per cent.

The survey found that Harris’ surge comes after Trump’s lead among male voters significantly declined in the final days leading up to the election.

Trump, 78, previously held a 57 per cent lead amongst male voters, but now only leads 51 per cent to Harris’ 47 per cent. However, the Democrat‘s lead among women shrunk from 18 to 11 points.

Analysts say the top line results of the Marist poll are nearly identical to those of the 2020 election, which reported Joe Biden leading Trump 51 to 47 per cent. 

The outcome of this year’s knife-edge election, which has become the closest race to White House in decades, is too close to call and could potentially come down to a few thousand votes in seven key swing states.

The survey found that Harris holds a 4-point lead over Trump nationally, which is just outside the poll’s 3.5-point margin of error.

Analysts say that most notable change in the last month of the campaign is the gender gap shrinking by half.

In October, Harris had the support of 41 per cent of men. That has now increased to 47 per cent. 

Trump’s support amongst male voters dropped from 57 to 51 per cent, but he still maintains a lead over Harris in this demographic.

The Vice President maintained her lead amongst women voters, but did see it drop from 58 to 55 per cent from October to November.

Trump, however, saw a rise in support amongst women with 44 per cent now saying they will back him, a 4-point increase from last month.

The gender split in the Marist poll is nearly identical to the split between Biden and Trump in 2020, analysts noted. 

Harris has also shrunken the lead that Trump has with white voters, the poll revealed. Trump led this demographic by 12 points in 2020, but now leads by 9.

However, compared to Biden in 2020, Harris has seen a slight decline in support from Black and Latino voters.

She has the support of 83 percent of Black likely voters and 61 percent of Latino likely voters, a drop of 8 and 2 points respectively from the share that support Biden four years ago.

That betting on the election is allowed for the first time signifies the latest turn in a years-long saga between the Commodity Futures Trading Commission and firms wishing to offer election betting – a legal practice in a number of other countries and one that some Americans participate in outside of regulators’ oversight via offshore markets.

Those in favor of gambling – or ‘event contracts’ in finance terms – say it is a legitimate way to hedge bets against adverse outcomes, likening it to futures contracts. Some also argue that the markets are better than polls.

‘These contracts are important,’ Steve Sanders, executive vice president of marketing and product development at Interactive Brokers, said. 

‘They’re good for people to take a view on what they think is happening and hedge their portfolios.’

Only two election betting markets were legally operating in the United States before the new ruling on October 2, having been granted exemptions due to their affiliation with research projects and the strict limits they placed on the amount people could bet.

But critics worry about widespread election gambling in a polarized moment when basic facts are in dispute and disinformation on which people might base their wagers is abundant.

‘I don’t want to be too dramatic, but we live in a country where tens of millions of Americans believe the last presidential election was stolen,’ CFTC General Counsel Rob Schwartz said during recent arguments against Kalshi.

‘Ensuring the integrity of elections and avoiding improper interference and misinformation are undoubtedly paramount public interests,’ Judge Patricia Millett wrote in the decision that allowed bets to be placed while the appeals against Kalshi play out.