latest Betfair odds

[Mr. Morden]

So how exactly does this betting stuff work: do you put down 30¢ now and hope you get back $1.00 on election day or do you only pay out after the election occurs? I have to imagine it's the second, because I can't see anyone sinking a substantial amount of money into something that gives such a small pay off several years before the election.

No, you put up the money now, and then it pays out when the thing you're betting on is resolved.  E.g., if you're betting on the 2020 Democratic nominee, then it pays out when the 2020 DNC is held, and someone formally receives the nomination.

However, if you have cancelling positions, then you can get money back before then.  E.g., suppose you put money on Booker to be the Democratic nominee at 7.7.  Then you put up that money now, but if the price later goes up to some higher number next month, then you could it short it at that higher number and get your money back with a profit well before 2020.

[Mr. Morden]

Trump to leave office before his first term is over (whether via death, impeachment, resignation, etc.) is now up to 49.5.  Trump to win the 2020 GOP nomination is down to 39.7.  And in winning individual, he’s below 25:

Trump 23.6
Pence 10.9
Warren 9.1
M. Obama 7.0
Biden 5.4
Ryan 5.0
Sanders 4.8
Clinton 3.8
Kaine 3.4
Cruz 3.3
Booker 2.9
Harris 2.6

This isn’t because of Syria btw.  Most of the slide in Trump’s position came before yesterday, and nothing much has really changed since then.

[Mr. Morden]

Democratic nomination:

Warren 16.1
Biden 12.5
M. Obama 9.5
Sanders 9.1
Clinton 7.7
Harris 7.7
Booker 7.4

Republican nomination:

Trump 39.4
Pence 38.2
Ryan 14.7
Cotton 7.1

[Mr. Morden]

Trump to leave office before the end of his term now at 53.5.

[Mr. Morden]

Democratic nomination

Warren 17.4
Sanders 16.8
Biden 11.6
Clinton 11.4
M. Obama 10.0
Booker 7.8
Harris 7.8
Klobuchar 7.0
Kaine 6.8

Republican nomination

Trump 44.1
Pence 32.9
Ryan 15.4

[Mr. Morden]

Share prices are volatile, but we are having a Trump comeback on winning individual…

Trump 30.0
Warren 12.5
Pence 11.9
Biden 5.4
M. Obama 5.4
Sanders 5.0
Booker 3.6
Clinton 3.3
Harris 3.3
Kasich 3.3
Ryan 2.8
The Rock 2.6
Zuckerberg 2.6

[Mr. Morden]

Joe-mentum continues, with Biden now alone in 4th place (and 2nd among the Dems listed) for winning individual:

Trump 30.0
Warren 12.8
Pence 11.4
Biden 5.8
M. Obama 5.4
Sanders 5.3
Booker 3.4
Zuckerberg 3.4
Kasich 3.3
Harris 3.1

[Mr. Morden]

Republican nomination:

Trump 46.7
Pence 28.6
Ryan 11.1

[Mr. Morden]

Predictit now giving Booker a whopping 77% chance of running, which is too high, IMHO.  Yes, he's near the top of the list of people most likely to run, maybe even at the very top.  But we're at least 18 months away from people announcing, too many things could happen that would change people's plans, etc., so too early for anyone to be given a 77% chance of running.

[Mr. Morden]

Michelle Obama, Kamala Harris, and Mark Zuckerberg all up in winning individual, while Trump and Warren both drop a bit.  Harris now (barely) ahead of Sanders, though Sanders is still ahead of her on most other betting sites.

Trump 28.8
Warren 11.4
Pence 11.1
M. Obama 7.0
Biden 5.7
Harris 5.4
Sanders 5.3
Zuckerberg 4.8
Ryan 4.5
Booker 3.6
Kasich 3.3
Castro 2.9

[Mr. Morden]

Despite the news of the past few weeks, Trump’s share price on winning individual has actually gone up.  Also, Sherrod Brown and Kirsten Gillibrand aren’t listed on Betfair’s winning individual, but they’re both doing decently with some of the other online bookies, so I list their share price on BetRed:

Trump 32.9
Pence 11.9
Warren 10.9
M. Obama 5.8
Biden 5.0
Harris 5.0
Sanders 5.0
The Rock 4.2
Zuckerberg 4.2
Booker 3.6
Ryan 3.3
Castro 2.9
Brown 2.4 (BetRed)
Gillibrand 2.4 (BetRed)

[Mr. Morden]

The betting markets are totally discredited. Both Bremain and Hillary traded at 85-90% literally minutes before the decisive votes started getting reported. These reflects the biases of their urban, center-left, sources of dumb money.

If Betfair had existed Since WW2, then it (or any other betting markets out there) would have had the guy who ended up winning the presidency favored in their market on election eve in every presidential election from 1952 to 2012.  Now, because the underdog wins one time, they're "discredited"?

From over half a year ago, but would the betting markets have won in 1960?

My understanding was that Kennedy was narrowly favored.  Looks like he was slightly ahead of Nixon in the polls just before the election:

link

[Mr. Morden]

Klobuchar’s surged to near 50 on Predictit’s odds of candidates deciding to run or not:

Booker 69
Warren 60
Cuomo 58
Klobuchar 46
Gillibrand 41
Kasich 39
Cruz 28
Sanders 28
Zuckerberg 26
The Rock 25
Cuban 23

I’m still surprised they don’t list Biden.  I understand why they don’t have O’Malley, since, despite him being very likely to run, nobody cares about him.  But you would think a big name like Biden would be listed.

[Mr. Morden]

Predictit just added Kamala Harris to their list of candidates for whom they're taking bets on whether they'll run or not (though no shares have been traded for her yet).  They still have yet to add Biden, which seems weird to me.

[Mr. Morden]

The party nomination markets are still rather low volume in trading, but I’ll just mention that Harris has been surging in the Dem. nomination market, and, as of a few days ago, is now in the lead, ahead of Warren:

Dem. nomination

Harris 20.0
Warren 19.2
Biden 12.5
Sanders 10.6
M. Obama 8.3
Clinton 8.0

GOP nomination

Trump 49.5
Pence 24.4

[Mr. Morden]

Harris is now solidly in second place in the winning individual market:

Trump 28.0
Harris 11.4
Pence 8.4
Warren 7.5
M. Obama 5.3
Sanders 5.0
Zuckerberg 4.8
Biden 3.8
The Rock 3.8
Oprah Winfrey 3.4
Booker 2.6
Gillibrand 2.5
Clinton 2.4
Castro 2.1
Franken 2.1
P. Ryan 2.1

[Mr. Morden]

Of course, I could be doing this all wrong, but I think I understand (1/last price matched).

Edit: I think something is wrong, as Elizabeth Warren has 15 price matched for Next President to Kamala Harris's 17.5, but for Democratic Nomenee they are tied at 6.4. I guess I am reading wrong or something.

No, that is the right idea.  It is 1/last price.  But the nomination and general election don't always match very well because it's still very early so volume is low.  I think winning individual volume is a bit better than the nomination markets.

I tend to use Oddschecker's price list for Betfair Exchange:

https://www.oddschecker.com/politics/us-politics/us-presidential-election-2020/winner

Numbers tend to be slightly different from what's on Betfair's website, but the layout of Betfair's website kind of annoys me.  Here's where we're at right now on winning individual:

Trump 28.4
Pence 8.4
Warren 7.5
Harris 7.0
Biden 5.7
Sanders 4.8
The Rock 4.0
Zuckerberg 3.7
M. Obama 3.3
Booker 3.1
Winfrey 2.5
P. Ryan 2.3

[Mr. Morden]

Winning individual:

Trump 29.6
Pence 8.1
Harris 7.5
Warren 7.0
Sanders 5.0
Biden 4.8
Gillibrand 4.3
The Rock 3.8
M. Obama 3.3
Zuckerberg 3.3
Booker 2.6

[Mr. Morden]

Predictit now has the following probabilities for these candidates running:

Harris 73
Gillibrand 72
Booker 68
Cuomo 65
McAuliffe 65
Sanders 61
Warren 60
Kasich 58
Klobuchar 58
Biden 56
Winfrey 39
Brown 36
Pence 34
Patrick 32
Cuban 28
Cruz 25
Kaine 22
The Rock 25
Schultz 19
Zuckerberg 16
P. Ryan 14
Bannon 9
Scarborough 9

[Mr. Morden]

Lots of movement in the betting markets towards Oprah today.  For some reason, Betfair isn’t showing up for me today, but here’s winning individual on BetRed:

https://www.oddschecker.com/politics/us-politics/us-presidential-election-2020/winner

Trump 40.0
Harris 8.3
Pence 8.3
Warren 7.1
Winfrey 7.1
Biden 5.0
Sanders 5.0
Gillibrand 4.0
Booker 3.0
M. Obama 3.0
Zuckerberg 3.0

All the other betting markets similarly have Winfrey close to or only marginally behind Harris and Warren.

[Mr. Morden]

The version of Betfair where the prices are set by bookies now has Oprah in second place on winning individual, ahead of every Democrat, and ahead of anyone else who isn’t Trump:

Trump 28.6
Winfrey 11.1
Biden 9.1
Pence 9.1
Warren 9.1
Harris 6.7
Gillibrand 5.9
Booker 5.3
M. Obama 4.8
P. Ryan 4.8
Sanders 4.8
Zuckberberg 4.8

EDIT: I just revised the numbers, because I initially misread how Oddschecker now reports them.  The Betred #s from the earlier post should also have Trump closer to 30 than 40, because I misread how they were being reported, but I'm too lazy to fix that one too.

[Mr. Morden]

Winfrey’s denial has led to her crashing in the betting markets.  In the Betfair market where prices are set by bookies, for winning individual, we’re now at:

Trump 28.6
Biden 9.1
Pence 9.1
Warren 9.1
Harris 6.7
Gillibrand 5.9
Sanders 5.9
Booker 5.3
M. Obama 4.8
P. Ryan 4.8
Zuckerberg 4.8

Winfrey’s now down to 1.5.  (Not as bad for her in some of the other betting markets though.)

[Mr. Morden]

First update on the Dem. nomination market in a long time:

Harris 16.1
Sanders 15.4
Warren 13.2
Biden 11.6
Winfrey 7.5
Gillibrand 6.2
Booker 5.9
M. Obama 5.9
Kaine 4.3
Klobuchar 4.0
Zuckerberg 4.0

[Mr. Morden]

Sanders in the lead now for the Democratic nomination:

Sanders 16.7
Harris 15.4
Biden 15.2
Warren 13.9
Gillibrand 7.8
Booker 5.7
M. Obama 5.7
Winfrey 4.8
Kaine 4.3
Klobuchar 4.0
Zuckerberg 4.0

Republican nomination:

Trump 69.2
Pence 16.1
Kasich 6.6

[Mr. Morden]

Dem. nomination:

Sanders 17.9
Harris 16.1
Biden 14.7
Warren 11.6
Gillibrand 8.1
Booker 5.7
M. Obama 5.7
Winfrey 4.8
Klobuchar 4.2
Hickenlooper 3.8