The razor-tight presidential race is drawing millions of dollars to politics betting sites, where users wagering on the battle are hoping to win big on their own. Now the novel form of election foresight is getting attention from campaigns and many Trump supporters.
Election bettors have been banking on the odds that Trump will win the White House in the next election, even if Harris wins the popular vote in what’s become one of the closest electoral battles in modern history.
Trump holds double-digit leads on major sites Kalshi, Polymarket, Betfair and Predictit, while public polling continues to show the race incredibly close in swing states that will decide the outcome. In all, more than $2 billion in bets across the platforms has been wagered on the race that will be decided in just two weeks, according to the platforms' real-time trackers.
Harris and Trump are neck and neck in traditional polls nationally, with The Hill/Decision Desk HQ's tracker giving Harris with an average 48.6 percent to Trump's 47.7 percent.
But analysts at electionbettingodds.com and other sites argue that the wagering markets may be a better indicator of where things stand rather than polls because bettors can more quickly react to the latest movements and voter whims.
Polymarket, which is the most popular of the sites but only allows bets outside of the U.S., ramped up its favorability for Trump to 66 percent this week; Kalshi, which is solely based on bettors in the United States, has Trump up 59 percent; PredictIt has Trump up at 60 percent; and BetFair has him up at 59 percent.
Trump has increasingly acknowledged his edge on the betting markets to tell supporters that he is winning.
"You see we’re up in the polls pretty substantially. They have a new thing, a new phenomena, and that’s gambling polls," Trump said during a Michigan rally last week. "I don’t know what the hell it means, but it means that we’re doing pretty well."
He also gave a nod to the betting stats while speaking to faith leaders in North Carolina on Monday.
"I know nobody in this room gambles, but some of the gambling polls are really in there, like 65 to 35 or something like that, I saw one. But nobody here gambles," he said.
Tarek Mansour, Kalshi's co-founder, posted information on the social media platform X that shows the site's median bet size falls between $10 and $50.
Polymarket, meanwhile, has faced scrutiny after a handful of accounts spent millions of dollars worth of crypto on bets in Trump’s favor.
