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Lets explore Polymarket and what bets are the best choice to make money in this election. You can bring alternative platforms if you want.
This post is not advice, just some ideas. I write this here because I am curious if I see multiple people who find a particular example to seem like an opportunity. I recall reading that only 12.7% of people who have used Polymarket have had positive returns. https://www.bitcoinsensus.com/news/polymarket-only-12-of-users-achieve-profits/
So, I am not encouraging anyone to bet money and to use this platform. Statistically, it is is a bad idea for most people.
In addition to the political element, the culture war element can be using politically incorrect knowledge to gain an edge.
Lets start with the sure ones: https://polymarket.com/event/california-presidential-election-winner
Black voters for Trump https://polymarket.com/event/trump-increase-share-of-black-voters
If Trump gets 13% of greater black votes at 21.95% return.
https://polymarket.com/event/will-trump-win-30-or-more-of-black-men?tid=1730390110917
Trump not getting 30% of black men at 23.45% return.
So which of the two is more likely? Seems that both are likely, but based on the sentiment and polling, Trump will increase his share of black voters.
Similar questions about women
https://polymarket.com/event/will-kamala-win-60-or-more-of-women
Only 14% choose this when Biden won 57% of women. Seems to be undercounted.
This one is with the cat lady picture
https://polymarket.com/event/will-kamala-do-better-than-biden-with-unmarried-women
Seems a likely yes with 31.57% return
https://polymarket.com/event/who-will-win-white-women
White women question. Trump won with white women vs both Biden and Clinton. This gives a bigger return, with bigger uncertainty. However, now there is Roe v Wade as a factor.
I am not going to explore the question of who gets elected as there is too much uncertainty and also I wonder if there is any possibility of ballot harvesting and fraud. Instead this question https://polymarket.com/event/popular-vote-margin-of-victory-in-presidential-election?tid=1730390617742
is interesting since you can buy multiple choices and eliminate less likely margins of history.
https://polymarket.com/event/popular-vote-margin-of-victory-in-presidential-election?tid=1730390617742
Biden won by 4.5%. If Trump does better than before, or if the difference is equally large with unlikely for Trump to have the 4-5% popular vote advantage, then you can eliminate some choices and increase the possible return % by investing the same amount for multiple choices.
And here is the Israel question.
https://polymarket.com/event/us-arms-embargo-on-israel-in-2024?tid=1730390749663
This one is until end of 2024.
Considering how powerful the Jewish lobby is in the USA, to put it in more politically correct terms, I find an arms embargo from the USA towards Israel as highly unlikely. However, the people who wrote this question are sneaky and offered this as sufficient for it to be yes: A limited embargo, restricting only certain categories of military equipment, will qualify for a "Yes" resolution.
This is a pattern with various questions, asking something that the expected answer would be X, but when clicking it, it gives a loophole where it becomes yes under less stringent requirements.
Like this example:
https://polymarket.com/event/will-the-us-confirm-that-aliens-exist-in-2024?tid=1730391254453
A member of the cabinet claiming this is not sufficient to be a genuine confirmation! Even that is still highly unlikely, of course.
I have a very good record of betting on prediciton markets and crypto. Turned an ~70K bankroll into a few million. That is not some Lebron level performance but its very good in my opinion. The motte isn't going to want to hear this but...
'Things the right wants to be true' are systematically overpriced. This has been true for years and it is probably still true this cycle. That doesn't mean Trump wont win or wont win in a landslide. But systematically the 'pro-rightwing' outcomes tend to be overpriced. I would not place a bet on any outcome where Trump wins unless you have a very good reason. I think trump is favored but the bets tend to be overpriced.
I will say there is one piece of counterevidence recently that seems important to my personal estimation. Prediction markets were way ahead of other sources in predicting that Joe Biden would step down. Places like Metaculus which are usually reasonably trustworthy (despite minimal monetary incentives) were hilariously overconfident. But I am skeptical of most 'trump wins X' bets from a financial point of view.
What is your general strategy for making money on prediction markets and crypto?
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Trump on polymarket has fallen by around 5 points today. I don't follow US politics closely and I don't know what has changed. Perhaps the accusations of market manipulation had something to them? The needle on polymarket was always higher than on other prediction sites.
I'm not going to bet on polymarket myself. I can't foresee a situation where my advantage in some kind of knowledge/prediction skills would be enough to ever make up for the extant pricing due to others betting, and the cut that the site takes. It seems like a "house (nearly) always wins" situation.
CNN just hot-dropped multiple battleground state polls showing Harris with a +6 lead.
Since polymarket mostly trails polls, it makes sense.
We’ve actually seen Polymarket front run the polls; not the other way around. My guess is there was a reaction to that polling but many other polls came out at the same time with Trump leading so hard to make heads or tails.
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I'm pretty sure those are outliers. At least, if you subtract the partisan reasoning, the entire industry is converging on even stevens. If Harris was suddenly doing landslide numbers it'd have been factored in already, no?
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I placed a fairly large bet on Kamala Harris to win at 33.3%. Trump is maybe slightly favored but seems close to a tossup to me.
I think 67/33 doesn’t make sense but 60/40 seems right. If the polls corrected the Trump hate of 2016/20, then it seems like a close race with Trump with an edge. If they didn’t correct the bias, then Trump landslide. If they overcorrected, then Harris with an edge.
Hence 60/40
60/40 would also easily justify a big bet at 33.3%. I have a long history of uhhhh gambling/speculative investment. I try to only place bets if there is a lot of extra room for me to be wrong and still have positive EV. Harris at 33.3% just seemed like a great buy.
Yeah agreed. To me polymarket seemed a bit too bullish on Trump. Again, I think Trump is the comfortable favorite but wouldn’t be shocking for Harris to win.
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