Disclaimer: Based on the nature of this data, all statistics are as of November 1, 2024

In the landscape of our democracy, we are constantly trying to gauge who is on top. During the 2024 presidential election between Trump and Harris, the polls seemed neck in neck, but betting sites told a different story. Would pollsters or betters prove to be right? November 5 provided the answer.

Election prediction sites are places where people can wager real money, albeit in a legally dubious way, on which candidates will win the election. One popular site, and the defacto for economists, is Polymarket. Polymarket allows users to bet on anything ranging from whether a candidate will say a specific word in a debate, to whether there will be a bird flu pandemic by the end of the year (chances are at about 5% by the way).

As of early November 2024, Trump led in the national election markets by 24 points, but that number was likely skewed. An article by Fortune says that many right wing backers were dumping copious amounts of money into these markets, with one French backer investing $28 million, single-handedly accounting for 3% of the bets that Trump would win the election.

A good metric for determining bias in the bets is looking at other markets. If we look at Trump Media Corp. (stock ticker DJT), we see that it mirrored many of the big swings seen in the betting markets.

Because of the recent polarization in the political landscape, some wondered whether betting odds had gotten less reliable. In this election, it turns out bets were spot on. While polls and experts said the candidates were neck and neck, the markets showed a large republican majority. That’s exactly what played out on November 5, with Trump winning decisively.