Betting odds for the 2024 election currently show the race as one of the closest in recent history, with Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump neck and neck in both the odds and the polls.

However, betting and polling models sometimes provide different predictions due to the different methodologies they use. Current polls show Harris with a very slim lead, with 538’s prediction model saying Harris has a 55 percent chance of winning the election.

Meanwhile, the betting odds at RealClearPolitics are calling the race a tie, with Trump and Harris each dead at 49.3 percent.

Are Betting Goods at Predicting Elections?

According to figures from Bookmakers Review, betting odds have accurately predicted several of the most recent elections, with 77 percent of expected candidates winning over the past 35 years.

In the eleven presidential elections since 1980, the only race where the winning candidate had worse odds than the losing candidate was 2016, where both betting markets and conventional polls failed to predict a Trump victory.

The betting odds have also correctly predicted elections, including Obama’s victory over Romney in 2012, where Obama was given -450 odds, and even the extremely close 2000 election, where President George W. Bush was given -150 odds.

According to the SportsOddsHistory archive, you have to go back to 1976, when President Jimmy Carter won Gerald Ford, the last time the betting turned the election wrong — and even then, Carter’s odds were only slightly better than Ford’s with +100.

Shortly after the vice presidential debate between Tim Walz and JD Vance, Trump overtook Harris as the bookmakers’ favorite in the race, with Betfair spokesman Sam Rosbottom telling Newsweek: “This really is a roller coaster of a gambling market.”

How are the bets determined?

The betting odds change depending on the methodologies used by each site. Unlike opinion polls, which use quantitative data from representative samples, bookmakers are free to add additional factors to the odds they offer.

For betting sites like Betfair, which currently gives Harris a 48 percent chance of winning the election (with Trump at 47), gamblers bet against each other rather than the bookmakers’ odds, meaning the odds are determined by public interaction and people’s beliefs or predictions. .

Other sites, such as Polymarket, which currently gives Trump a two-point lead over Harris, use a “blockchain-based prediction market” to allow users to buy the equivalent of shares in a given outcome, increasing the likelihood that it will happen outcome occurs. “collective wisdom.”

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