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Comment by valval | Hacker News Reader

Betting odds.

Betting on winner, or on popular vote? Because even assuming the betters have the odds right, those are not the same thing.

To me the popular vote is irrelevant and in my original post I meant the winner, despite saying the majority which you interpreted to mean “more than 50% of the population of the US”. We have a system in place to counterbalance the fact that large numbers of likeminded people concentrated in one area could otherwise rule over everyone else through tyranny of the majority. To me the majority therefore just means “most of the US”.

If you think betters do not have the odds right, you should start betting right now.

Using "majority of people" to mean anything but something over 50% of people is going to lead to miscommunication. I'd advise against it.

> If you think betters do not have the odds right, you should start betting right now.

Sure, depending on my risk tolerance and existing exposure.

Even the betting sites where Trump is extremely (as in, much more than in the poll-based forecast sites) favored to win the electoral college, like Polymarket, have Harris a strong favorite to win the most votes, just as the poll-based forecasts generally do.

E.g, Polymarket, which gives Trump a 65% chance to win the EC compared to 538s 53%, has Harris at 58% to win the popular vote compared to 538s 65%. (And while it is possible for the popular vote winner to have a mere plurality of votes, it is not possible to get a majority of votes and not be the popular vote winner, so, no, the source of evidence you cite does not support the claim that "by the looks of it, the majority of people" will vote are going to vote for Trump, but instead support that the majority will most likely not do so.)

At the end of the day, you will find this prediction markets to be as successful as sports betters. We would be wise to remove all money from politics.

Rational well managed sports betters are quite successful.

Paddy Power (as one example) has grown in 36 years to now have > £11 billion revenue per annum with a net income of some £1.2 billion.

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