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There are certainly problems with treating betting markets as truly predictive, but I think claims that they're manipulated are kind of weird. The great thing about betting markets is that if someone tries to move the market for the sake of trying to push an agenda, someone else that thinks their view is wrong can simply bet back in the opposite direction. There isn't really any good reason to expect manipulation to be stable - if there is a positive EV option available in a tolerably liquid market, someone will take it. The people that insist that Polymarket isn't reflecting the true odds should go make themselves some money!
I think someone did try to manipulate Polymarket in Harris's favor last weekend. But as you point out, people can simply bet in the opposite direction, which they did.
My guess is that it was a Democratic megadonor who bought the story of pro-Trump manipulation (which didn't happen), then tried it for themselves, lost a bunch of money, and quickly bailed.
The flash crash only lasted for about one hour.
Has Mark Cuban written all over it
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I don't think it's so much that betting markets are manipulated as it is that they can be representative of the biased of the bettors. I remember mediocre Steelers seasons where the team wasn't playing well, yet they always seemed to be favored by a few points, regardless of the opponent. Why? Because there were certain people who just bet on the Steelers all the time. I don't know who is actually betting on elections but I'd be surprised if any of the following are doing it in significant numbers: Women, minorities, older voters, people without college education, people in rural areas, low-income voters, blue collar voters, etc. Sports betting certainly has its own demographic biases as well, but they track pretty closely to the population that follows sports. The younger, white, male, urban, college-educated population doesn't track well with the segment of the population that follows politics, insofar as the bulk of the people actually participating in the election don't fall into that demographic group. the whole "wisdom of crowds" argument doesn't apply as much.
Yes, exactly, this is what I meant when I said that there are problems with treating betting markets as truly predictive. In sports, these are referred to as "public teams" and I wouldn't be surprised to see these sorts of effects among people that place a few bucks on Polymarket as a hobby. My objection isn't that betting markets are perfect, it's that conscious manipulation will tend to lose out to people that want to make a buck because it creates perceived positive expected value opportunities. People that think there is conscious manipulation or that they personally know which direction the market is biased in should simply bet against that position and enjoy the free positive expected value.
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So when the same markets had Trump in the mid 40s to win…does your explanation still hold?
Yup. I put very little value in prediction markets.
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