Political Betting–2016 Presidential Election Odds Monday Night Update
Cast those fears of a mundane run-up to the 2016 Presidential election aside!! We’ve got a full fledged freak show on our hands!! What appeared not too long ago to be an easy sprint to the finish line for Hillary Clinton (or as close to a ‘sprint’ as she’s physically capable of at this point) has become a very competitive election. All it took was a bunch more Hillary Clinton email revelations and her supplicants ham-handed response to them to completely change the dynamic.
At this point, it’s not so much what Trump is doing *right* in his campaign. He has made a few solid tactical moves (like saving much of his campaign budget for the final couple of weeks) but he’s essentially ‘maintaining’ at this point. This is all the Clinton campaign imploding. There are ancillary benefits for Trump–he clearly looks rejuvenated by his resurgence in the polls. More importantly, it’s reviving the enthusiasm of Trump supporters while dampening that of Clinton’s backers. This could greatly impact turnout which could determine the outcome of the election.
The odds on the election haven’t changed since last night but this isn’t really surprising. Let’s take a look at the latest prices and then we’ll consider the betting dynamics:
NEXT PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES 10/31/16:
Hillary Clinton:-300
Donald Trump: +225
Other: +3000
The prices on 10/27/16:
Hillary Clinton:-525
Donald Trump: +415
Other: +3750
Our previous update on 10/25/16 looked like this:
Hillary Clinton:-600
Donald Trump: +450
Other: +4500
LINE MOVEMENT ANALYSIS
The lack of movement isn’t particularly surprising for a couple of reasons. First, they’re a ‘trailing indicator’ and the latest round of bad news for Hillary has already been priced in. We’re coming off the weekend where fewer things happen in the political world. More significantly, there’s still enough money in the market for Hillary to keep things in equilibrium. Remember that the purpose of betting odds isn’t to ‘predict’ the outcome of an event–the purpose is to generate two way action and (hopefully) keep the same amount of money coming in on each side of the proposition. Right now, 38% of bets are being made on Hillary, 44% on Trump and a surprisingly high 18% on ‘Others’. Don’t forget that just a week ago -600 was the prevailing market price on Hillary and there were plenty of people laying that price. Even with the interceding bad news for the Clinton campaign there’s no doubt plenty of people thinking that if they liked Hillary at -600 they like her even more at -300. Alternately, the implied probabilty at -600 is roughly 85% while at -300 it is roughly 75%. If you’re of the opinion that Hillary has an 80% chance of winning there was no value in getting involved at -600 but now that the price is -300 you’re getting an overlay.
What is likely happening in the ‘macro’ is that when the Clinton price hits a certain level there are people buying it back. Right now, it looks like -300 is the ‘floor’ and that there’s still enough Clinton money buying at -300 to keep it where it is. Likewise, if you’re a Trump bettor and see the way the market dynamics are currenly playing out you’re in no rush to make a bet. It looks like the Trump money entering the marketplace is ‘taking’ when the price drifts to Clinton -350 and the takeback on Trump goes to +275.
With the market in some degree of equilibrium at the moment it’ll likely take some news or other event to change that one way or the other. An even of sufficient significance could happen at any time in this race. The line movement is also a good way to see how the tactical moves of each side are working out. For example, Team Clinton’s spin on the most recent revelations has been to go after FBI Director James Comey. Since we’re not seeing a bounce in the betting odds as they work their ‘angle’ it suggests that its not getting much traction. It might make the voters still committed to Hillary feel better but it’s not answering the concerns of the ‘non believers’. Of course that might not be their goal–they could be assuming that the more of a stink they make over Comey the less media coverage will be devoted to the substance of the recently released Wikilinks emails which among other things gives the impression of sleaze, influence peddling and corruption in Clinton Foundation activities.
We’ll be back later this evening with a few new proposition bets on the 2016 Presidential race and related events. Within the next 24 hours I’ll be posting the full rundown of individual state odds for President.