Kamala Harris Gaining Ground on Trump With Bookmakers Days Before Election

The chances of Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris winning the 2024 election have increased noticeably with a number of leading betting companies since the night of Saturday, November 2.
Betfair, a British betting exchange, gave Republican candidate Donald Trump a 60 percent chance of winning on Saturday, while Harris had a 40 percent chance. By Sunday, those odds had slipped to 55.87 percent for Trump while Harris had climbed to 44.24 percent.
Betfair spokesperson Sam Robertson told Newsweek that Saturday night’s movement was caused by the bombshell poll from respected pollster Selzer & Co, which found Harris led Trump by three points in deep-red Iowa.
“The betting markets have tightened significantly in recent days,” Robertson said. “Trump is still the heavy favorite to win the election at odds of 4/5, a 56 percent chance. Yet this is far from his best—he was at 65 percent earlier in the week and has been sliding ever since.”
“Movement on Saturday night was precipitated by a new Des Moines Register poll [conducted by Selzer & Co.] that showed Harris ahead of Trump, in a state that has not been a swing state in the last two elections.
“The election has been a blockbuster event for the betting markets, and on the Election Winner market alone over $186 million has been wagered.
“Friday and Saturday were both the biggest days by far for this market, with $15.5 million and $11.6 million respectively being bet in total across the two days. These are the two biggest betting days on this market since it launched in 2020.”
Newsweek contacted the Donald Trump and Kamala Harris presidential election campaigns for comment by email outside of regular office hours.
Kalshi, another prediction market website, gave Trump a 64 percent chance of victory on Tuesday, October 29, against 36 percent for Harris. By Sunday morning, the Republican’s chances had crashed to 51 percent, and the Democrat’s had increased to 49 percent.
With Polymarket, another predictions website, where customers can buy and sell shares on events taking place, Trump’s odds of winning fell from 67 percent on Wednesday October 30 to 54 percent on Sunday, November 3. The same period saw Harris’ odds improve from 33 percent to 46 percent.
While betting odds have consistently predicted the winner of the presidential election historically, they are not based on the same representational statistics as polling and are therefore more prone to biases.
In the 11 presidential elections since 1980, the only race where the winning candidate had worse odds than the losing candidate was in 2016, where both the betting markets and conventional polling failed to predict a Trump win.