This, and presumably all other avenues to seize or retain power, are factored into this probability. The current president still has a 7.8% chance, according to the exchange trading, of retaining office at the end of all legal challenges. The Betfair markets offer an insight into this. How can this be so, given that the presidential inauguration date for the next term of office is January 20, 2021? At that point, the loser of the election ceases to be in office.Ĭould it be that Biden is inaugurated but Trump barricades himself inside the Oval Office for five weeks? More realistically, the traders are factoring in the small possibility of Trump clinging on for a second term. So what are they telling us now? In a press release issued by Sporting Index on November 12, the firm’s political traders forecast the date on which they expect Trump to leave the White House as February 26, 2021. What this tells us is that the betting and prediction markets, which respond to the weight of money traded on each candidate, and are informed by considerable professional insight, have this year recovered a reputation dating back to at least 1868, and in the case of the Papal betting markets as far back as 1503.īetting markets have historically been pretty good at predicting the next Pope. If Georgia ends up after a recount in the Trump column the betting markets will still have performed well – certainly compared to the forecasting models.īiden or Trump? Betting markets are more cautious than polls in predicting the 2020 US election In fact, both these numbers are within the spreads offered on election day. If this does happen, the betting spreads will be almost spot on. This assumes that Georgia, which has yet to be called by the networks, will go as most independent observers expect: for Biden. Ten days on from the close of voting and it seems on current trends that Biden will end up with 306 votes in the electoral college to 232 for Trump.

This year it forecast a Biden victory by 329 electoral votes to 209. The PollyVote project, widely published in academic journals, goes a step further, combining information contained in betting markets with forecasting models, experts and beyond.

This year it was projecting Biden to win the electoral college by 321 votes to 217. The other go-to place for expert opinion with a long track record of solid performance (except in 2016) is Sabato’s Crystal Ball based at the University of Virginia’s Center for Politics.

Us election betting odds