Who will win the White House, Donald Trump or Kamala Harris? Place your bets: a recent court decision now allows Americans to bet on the presidential election of November 5, with a very undecided outcome.
KEYSTONE
The predictions on the betting platforms are like the race for the White House between the Democratic vice-president and the former Republican president: extremely close. As of Friday evening, the two candidates were at 50-50 on Interactive Brokers.
In just a few days, millions of dollars have been committed to these online bets since a Washington court’s decision on October 2 authorizing Kalshi, a start-up that has been trying for years to introduce election betting to the states. -United, to accept bets.
This decision will undoubtedly be the subject of appeals, but it seems unlikely that a change of heart will take place before the vote.
According to Kalshi’s site, more than $6.3 million was at stake for the Harris-Trump duel. Punters can also bet on the congressional elections, which will take place on the same day.
The issue of gambling in politics has been the subject of a long regulatory and legal battle for years in the United States where it was until now prohibited.
Long battle
This does not prevent many Americans from participating via offshore platforms, outside of any oversight from regulators.
More than 1.7 billion dollars were placed on Harris-Trump on one of these platforms, Polymarket, where Trump had the clear advantage on Friday evening at 54% against 46% for Harris.
Election betting was widespread in the United States until the 1930s, with a presence on Wall Street as well as in the political pages of newspapers, before regulation and public opinion hastened its end.
Their detractors are worried about the risks of corruption and gamification of the political system, with electoral campaigns already generating billions of dollars.
Conversely, their supporters assert that it is a legitimate way to protect against unfavorable outcomes, as traders do with other futures contracts. Some even argue that the betting market is more reliable than opinion polls.
“These contracts are important,” Steve Sanders, vice-president at Interactive Brokers, told AFP. “They allow people to get a sense of what they think is going on.”
“Good year”
Only two election betting markets operated legally in the United States before the October 2 decision, thanks to exemptions with strict limits on the amounts of allowed bets.
Opponents of betting are now worried about their generalization in a country that is so polarized and where Donald Trump has still not acknowledged having lost the election in 2020 to Joe Biden.
“Without dramatizing, we live in a country where tens of millions of Americans believe that the last presidential election was stolen,” noted Rob Schwartz, general counsel of the CFTC, the American regulatory agency for financial products. , during the pleadings against Kalshi.
The fact remains that Judge Patricia Millet, in charge of the case, considered that the agency had “given this court no concrete elements to conclude that event contracts would probably be a vector” going against the integrity of the ‘election.
For Pratik Chougule, co-founder of a pressure group in favor of these online bets, “the year has been good” and he is now considering opening an account with Interactive Brokers.
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