Election Betting

Quote:

You'll have to tell that to the Wizard, I believe he bet Harris. Would you like his PM link to clarify? I would hazard to guess there are people much sharper than everyone here who bet Harris.

How much money did you make betting on the Election?

That's a personal matter and not really relevant to the discussion of the thread. Also very provocative and annoying for non-republican voters.

I made a clear and accurate election prediction here: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HvjrwwJzL0I
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HvjrwwJzL0I

My prediction was off by about 1% which is bad for me. I managed to get the result of the UK election almost completely accurately earlier in the year as you'll see if you look at the election which was over 10 points off what the pollsters were predicting. I have not lost a bet on an international election since 2000 (yes I went for Gore). Most involved betting on the clear favorite as in this election but there were exceptions such as Trump's surprise victory in 2016. I can also call the projected vote share accurately much more so than the pollsters or the markets.

Regarding the wizard: it is very common for mathematically sophisticated and competent advantage players to fail at predicting mathematically quantifiable events.There is a long history of this going back to Wong's efforts to beat sport in the noughties and the LCTM debacle in finance. The skill sets are just completely different. I do not think his bet was sharp. The reasons:

1. A new candidate generally receives a honeymoon period with voters which is illusory, as in Kamala's case. People like to think they are fair and give a new candidate a chance. They do not yet know the skeletons in the closet of the new candidate. This chimera gets factored into the polls but vanishes almost immediately afterward.
The Wizard bet into this line, very difficult to justify.

2. Sharps invariably are contrarians. Not reflexively so, but sharps will very rarely bet into a line which is being boosted by public information for the simple reason the public usually overbets into public information. By definition you cannot make money betting into what everyone else is betting.

3. The pattern of almost every post-millenial election poll is a bias that over-represents centrist candidates at the expense of populist candidates. The political ideology is irrelevant - this affects far left socialists in Europe as much as maga types.

4. The wizard did not seem to be very clear about the actual mechanics of betting. He has consistently talked about arbitrage opportunities where none existed in the markets. The markets have to have standardized rules across independent platforms for that to be the case. Given that if Harris had performed better, that significantly would have increased the chance of a contested election, different rules sets coming into play and the real possibility of losing one wager and having the other voided.. Plus there were two attempted assassination attempts - betting into that is a mess. This doesn't give me confidence he did his homework on this or the election generally.

5. Kamala Harris was soundly destroyed in the primaries and ended up with a dismal vote share. If you have ALREADY HAD a proven failure in a major election that in itself is indicative that the candidate is unlikely to succeed. Historical precedent is more important than historical data. A classic sharp betting play is to use a historical model where others are using statistical models: historical models always outperform.

I could go on here at great length.

This may sound like I'm being overly critical. In fact the Wizard's comments were symptomatic of comments from political bettors through the election. I'm only going into this depth because people have such a hard time believing someone who is so competent with stats/math/programming could fail at less formulaic forms of ap, but this is actually the rule rather than the exception. I think a lot of math post-graduate types believe they are entitled to an edge simply by virtue of their intelligence and they don't put the work in. I never had any illusions about my own genius.

It is possible of course that the Wizard had some kind of secret information that we weren't privy to. That seems IMO very unlikely given the basis of his public pronouncements. Given that he chose not to share that information with us but made a prediction anyway you have to ignore it even if it does in fact, exist.

Quote: AutomaticMonkey

Can we at least have a measure of security for voting as thorough as what we would put up with for using a buffet comp at a casino?

Super!

Quote: Archvaldor1

Quote:

You'll have to tell that to the Wizard, I believe he bet Harris. Would you like his PM link to clarify? I would hazard to guess there are people much sharper than everyone here who bet Harris.

How much money did you make betting on the Election?

That's a personal matter and not really relevant to the discussion of the thread. Also very provocative and annoying for non-republican voters.

I made a clear and accurate election prediction here: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HvjrwwJzL0I
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HvjrwwJzL0I

My prediction was off by about 1% which is bad for me. I managed to get the result of the UK election almost completely accurately earlier in the year as you'll see if you look at the election which was over 10 points off what the pollsters were predicting. I have not lost a bet on an international election since 2000 (yes I went for Gore). Most involved betting on the clear favorite as in this election but there were exceptions such as Trump's surprise victory in 2016. I can also call the projected vote share accurately much more so than the pollsters or the markets.

Regarding the wizard: it is very common for mathematically sophisticated and competent advantage players to fail at predicting mathematically quantifiable events.There is a long history of this going back to Wong's efforts to beat sport in the noughties and the LCTM debacle in finance. The skill sets are just completely different. I do not think his bet was sharp. The reasons:

1. A new candidate generally receives a honeymoon period with voters which is illusory, as in Kamala's case. People like to think they are fair and give a new candidate a chance. They do not yet know the skeletons in the closet of the new candidate. This chimera gets factored into the polls but vanishes almost immediately afterward.
The Wizard bet into this line, very difficult to justify.

2. Sharps invariably are contrarians. Not reflexively so, but sharps will very rarely bet into a line which is being boosted by public information for the simple reason the public usually overbets into public information. By definition you cannot make money betting into what everyone else is betting.

3. The pattern of almost every post-millenial election poll is a bias that over-represents centrist candidates at the expense of populist candidates. The political ideology is irrelevant - this affects far left socialists in Europe as much as maga types.

4. The wizard did not seem to be very clear about the actual mechanics of betting. He has consistently talked about arbitrage opportunities where none existed in the markets. The markets have to have standardized rules across independent platforms for that to be the case. Given that if Harris had performed better, that significantly would have increased the chance of a contested election, different rules sets coming into play and the real possibility of losing one wager and having the other voided.. Plus there were two attempted assassination attempts - betting into that is a mess. This doesn't give me confidence he did his homework on this or the election generally.

5. Kamala Harris was soundly destroyed in the primaries and ended up with a dismal vote share. If you have ALREADY HAD a proven failure in a major election that in itself is indicative that the candidate is unlikely to succeed. Historical precedent is more important than historical data. A classic sharp betting play is to use a historical model where others are using statistical models: historical models always outperform.

I could go on here at great length.

This may sound like I'm being overly critical. In fact the Wizard's comments were symptomatic of comments from political bettors through the election. I'm only going into this depth because people have such a hard time believing someone who is so competent with stats/math/programming could fail at less formulaic forms of ap, but this is actually the rule rather than the exception. I think a lot of math post-graduate types believe they are entitled to an edge simply by virtue of their intelligence and they don't put the work in. I never had any illusions about my own genius.

It is possible of course that the Wizard had some kind of secret information that we weren't privy to. That seems IMO very unlikely given the basis of his public pronouncements. Given that he chose not to share that information with us but made a prediction anyway you have to ignore it even if it does in fact, exist.
link to original post

Your post implies you were sure Trump was going to win. How ‘sure’ were you, say the day before Election Day. Give me your % chance of Trump winning that you derived.
And, if you don’t mind, then how much did you bet on Trump winning and what odds did you get?

Quote: AZDuffman

Quote: billryan

There is nothing wrong with sending out duplicate ballots. It's illegal to return more than one, it's not illegal to send someone more than one.
link to original post

Yes, there is something wrong with it. Doing so makes fraud easier. It almost invites it. Person sends multiples back, very little chance of getting caught. If they do get caught they play dumb. "Uh, I thought there was a problem so they sent me a new ballot." This is fundamental security. It is the same reasoning why a secure place will not give employees more than 1 access badge. Or a prison does not have more keys than required.

Unless the ballots are coded to the voter to have the computer kick out multiples then it is easy to vote more than once. And if you do that you end the secret ballot.

2020 is not the first USA election with this kind of tainted results. But tainted it is, based on the drop in voters to 2024 alone.
link to original post

Every ballot is coded to a particular person. Filling out two or more increases your chances of being caught. In most jurisdictions, filling out someone else's ballot and casting it is a felony.

Quote: SOOPOO

Your post implies you were sure Trump was going to win. How ‘sure’ were you, say the day before Election Day. Give me your % chance of Trump winning that you derived.
And, if you don’t mind, then how much did you bet on Trump winning and what odds did you get?
link to original post

75% as I said in the video. I was basically assuming that the polls were off by 3% - the average of the bias with Hilary and Biden (2 & 4%).

Trump was available at 1.73 at betfair on the day of the election. You could have got 2.2 at one stage when Kamala was doing better in the polls (though I didn't).

I'm not going to go into details of my actual bets but there were many millions of pounds available to back and play on the main result at betfair.

Quote: Archvaldor1

Quote:

You'll have to tell that to the Wizard, I believe he bet Harris. Would you like his PM link to clarify? I would hazard to guess there are people much sharper than everyone here who bet Harris.

How much money did you make betting on the Election?

That's a personal matter and not really relevant to the discussion of the thread. Also very provocative and annoying for non-republican voters.

I made a clear and accurate election prediction here: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HvjrwwJzL0I
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HvjrwwJzL0I

My prediction was off by about 1% which is bad for me. I managed to get the result of the UK election almost completely accurately earlier in the year as you'll see if you look at the election which was over 10 points off what the pollsters were predicting. I have not lost a bet on an international election since 2000 (yes I went for Gore). Most involved betting on the clear favorite as in this election but there were exceptions such as Trump's surprise victory in 2016. I can also call the projected vote share accurately much more so than the pollsters or the markets.

Regarding the wizard: it is very common for mathematically sophisticated and competent advantage players to fail at predicting mathematically quantifiable events.There is a long history of this going back to Wong's efforts to beat sport in the noughties and the LCTM debacle in finance. The skill sets are just completely different. I do not think his bet was sharp. The reasons:

1. A new candidate generally receives a honeymoon period with voters which is illusory, as in Kamala's case. People like to think they are fair and give a new candidate a chance. They do not yet know the skeletons in the closet of the new candidate. This chimera gets factored into the polls but vanishes almost immediately afterward.
The Wizard bet into this line, very difficult to justify.

2. Sharps invariably are contrarians. Not reflexively so, but sharps will very rarely bet into a line which is being boosted by public information for the simple reason the public usually overbets into public information. By definition you cannot make money betting into what everyone else is betting.

3. The pattern of almost every post-millenial election poll is a bias that over-represents centrist candidates at the expense of populist candidates. The political ideology is irrelevant - this affects far left socialists in Europe as much as maga types.

4. The wizard did not seem to be very clear about the actual mechanics of betting. He has consistently talked about arbitrage opportunities where none existed in the markets. The markets have to have standardized rules across independent platforms for that to be the case. Given that if Harris had performed better, that significantly would have increased the chance of a contested election, different rules sets coming into play and the real possibility of losing one wager and having the other voided.. Plus there were two attempted assassination attempts - betting into that is a mess. This doesn't give me confidence he did his homework on this or the election generally.

5. Kamala Harris was soundly destroyed in the primaries and ended up with a dismal vote share. If you have ALREADY HAD a proven failure in a major election that in itself is indicative that the candidate is unlikely to succeed. Historical precedent is more important than historical data. A classic sharp betting play is to use a historical model where others are using statistical models: historical models always outperform.

I could go on here at great length.

This may sound like I'm being overly critical. In fact the Wizard's comments were symptomatic of comments from political bettors through the election. I'm only going into this depth because people have such a hard time believing someone who is so competent with stats/math/programming could fail at less formulaic forms of ap, but this is actually the rule rather than the exception. I think a lot of math post-graduate types believe they are entitled to an edge simply by virtue of their intelligence and they don't put the work in. I never had any illusions about my own genius.

It is possible of course that the Wizard had some kind of secret information that we weren't privy to. That seems IMO very unlikely given the basis of his public pronouncements. Given that he chose not to share that information with us but made a prediction anyway you have to ignore it even if it does in fact, exist.
link to original post

Great post, I agree with 98% of what you said. I used mostly anecdotal evidence to choose the winner. In the case of Harris you are correct, the fact that she already did so poorly in her first presidential bid was great evidence that she would do poorly again. For me it was the little things, like in 2020 if you a Trump t-shirt on a college campus you could get stoned by the other students. In 2024 they were holding Trump rallies on college campuses, students had Trump signs on their dorm doors. Minorities were walking around their neighborhoods wearing Maga hats. Nobody was afraid to say that they were voting for Trump. This is all unscientific anecdotal evidence that pointed to the winner.

Quote: EvenBob

Quote: Archvaldor1

Quote:

You'll have to tell that to the Wizard, I believe he bet Harris. Would you like his PM link to clarify? I would hazard to guess there are people much sharper than everyone here who bet Harris.

How much money did you make betting on the Election?

That's a personal matter and not really relevant to the discussion of the thread. Also very provocative and annoying for non-republican voters.

I made a clear and accurate election prediction here: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HvjrwwJzL0I
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HvjrwwJzL0I

My prediction was off by about 1% which is bad for me. I managed to get the result of the UK election almost completely accurately earlier in the year as you'll see if you look at the election which was over 10 points off what the pollsters were predicting. I have not lost a bet on an international election since 2000 (yes I went for Gore). Most involved betting on the clear favorite as in this election but there were exceptions such as Trump's surprise victory in 2016. I can also call the projected vote share accurately much more so than the pollsters or the markets.

Regarding the wizard: it is very common for mathematically sophisticated and competent advantage players to fail at predicting mathematically quantifiable events.There is a long history of this going back to Wong's efforts to beat sport in the noughties and the LCTM debacle in finance. The skill sets are just completely different. I do not think his bet was sharp. The reasons:

1. A new candidate generally receives a honeymoon period with voters which is illusory, as in Kamala's case. People like to think they are fair and give a new candidate a chance. They do not yet know the skeletons in the closet of the new candidate. This chimera gets factored into the polls but vanishes almost immediately afterward.
The Wizard bet into this line, very difficult to justify.

2. Sharps invariably are contrarians. Not reflexively so, but sharps will very rarely bet into a line which is being boosted by public information for the simple reason the public usually overbets into public information. By definition you cannot make money betting into what everyone else is betting.

3. The pattern of almost every post-millenial election poll is a bias that over-represents centrist candidates at the expense of populist candidates. The political ideology is irrelevant - this affects far left socialists in Europe as much as maga types.

4. The wizard did not seem to be very clear about the actual mechanics of betting. He has consistently talked about arbitrage opportunities where none existed in the markets. The markets have to have standardized rules across independent platforms for that to be the case. Given that if Harris had performed better, that significantly would have increased the chance of a contested election, different rules sets coming into play and the real possibility of losing one wager and having the other voided.. Plus there were two attempted assassination attempts - betting into that is a mess. This doesn't give me confidence he did his homework on this or the election generally.

5. Kamala Harris was soundly destroyed in the primaries and ended up with a dismal vote share. If you have ALREADY HAD a proven failure in a major election that in itself is indicative that the candidate is unlikely to succeed. Historical precedent is more important than historical data. A classic sharp betting play is to use a historical model where others are using statistical models: historical models always outperform.

I could go on here at great length.

This may sound like I'm being overly critical. In fact the Wizard's comments were symptomatic of comments from political bettors through the election. I'm only going into this depth because people have such a hard time believing someone who is so competent with stats/math/programming could fail at less formulaic forms of ap, but this is actually the rule rather than the exception. I think a lot of math post-graduate types believe they are entitled to an edge simply by virtue of their intelligence and they don't put the work in. I never had any illusions about my own genius.

It is possible of course that the Wizard had some kind of secret information that we weren't privy to. That seems IMO very unlikely given the basis of his public pronouncements. Given that he chose not to share that information with us but made a prediction anyway you have to ignore it even if it does in fact, exist.
link to original post

Great post, I agree with 98% of what you said. I used mostly anecdotal evidence to choose the winner. In the case of Harris you are correct, the fact that she already did so poorly in her first presidential bid was great evidence that she would do poorly again. For me it was the little things, like in 2020 if you a Trump t-shirt on a college campus you could get stoned by the other students. In 2024 they were holding Trump rallies on college campuses, students had Trump signs on their dorm doors. Minorities were walking around their neighborhoods wearing Maga hats. Nobody was afraid to say that they were voting for Trump. This is all unscientific anecdotal evidence that pointed to the winner.
link to original post

Some commentator I forget who but a lefty was at an early trump rally and said the Democrats had better watch as to him it had the feel of Obama 2008. I was not totally sold on PA as I saw far more Kamala signs than Hillary in 2016 when I took country convertible rides but I did seem to see more Trump signs. There was a Trump store of sorts never closed after 2020 indicating a “he’ll be back” feeling. Like you said anecdotal but enough of that and you start to have something.

Anecdotally on the Kamala side it just did not feel the same support from women. In 2016 I remember stories of women buying pantsuits to wear to watch parties. Kamala felt more like “we have to” than “we want to.” Impossible to quantify but add it to why the polls felt off.

Quote: EvenBob

Quote: Archvaldor1

Quote:

You'll have to tell that to the Wizard, I believe he bet Harris. Would you like his PM link to clarify? I would hazard to guess there are people much sharper than everyone here who bet Harris.

How much money did you make betting on the Election?

That's a personal matter and not really relevant to the discussion of the thread. Also very provocative and annoying for non-republican voters.

I made a clear and accurate election prediction here: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HvjrwwJzL0I
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HvjrwwJzL0I

My prediction was off by about 1% which is bad for me. I managed to get the result of the UK election almost completely accurately earlier in the year as you'll see if you look at the election which was over 10 points off what the pollsters were predicting. I have not lost a bet on an international election since 2000 (yes I went for Gore). Most involved betting on the clear favorite as in this election but there were exceptions such as Trump's surprise victory in 2016. I can also call the projected vote share accurately much more so than the pollsters or the markets.

Regarding the wizard: it is very common for mathematically sophisticated and competent advantage players to fail at predicting mathematically quantifiable events.There is a long history of this going back to Wong's efforts to beat sport in the noughties and the LCTM debacle in finance. The skill sets are just completely different. I do not think his bet was sharp. The reasons:

1. A new candidate generally receives a honeymoon period with voters which is illusory, as in Kamala's case. People like to think they are fair and give a new candidate a chance. They do not yet know the skeletons in the closet of the new candidate. This chimera gets factored into the polls but vanishes almost immediately afterward.
The Wizard bet into this line, very difficult to justify.

2. Sharps invariably are contrarians. Not reflexively so, but sharps will very rarely bet into a line which is being boosted by public information for the simple reason the public usually overbets into public information. By definition you cannot make money betting into what everyone else is betting.

3. The pattern of almost every post-millenial election poll is a bias that over-represents centrist candidates at the expense of populist candidates. The political ideology is irrelevant - this affects far left socialists in Europe as much as maga types.

4. The wizard did not seem to be very clear about the actual mechanics of betting. He has consistently talked about arbitrage opportunities where none existed in the markets. The markets have to have standardized rules across independent platforms for that to be the case. Given that if Harris had performed better, that significantly would have increased the chance of a contested election, different rules sets coming into play and the real possibility of losing one wager and having the other voided.. Plus there were two attempted assassination attempts - betting into that is a mess. This doesn't give me confidence he did his homework on this or the election generally.

5. Kamala Harris was soundly destroyed in the primaries and ended up with a dismal vote share. If you have ALREADY HAD a proven failure in a major election that in itself is indicative that the candidate is unlikely to succeed. Historical precedent is more important than historical data. A classic sharp betting play is to use a historical model where others are using statistical models: historical models always outperform.

I could go on here at great length.

This may sound like I'm being overly critical. In fact the Wizard's comments were symptomatic of comments from political bettors through the election. I'm only going into this depth because people have such a hard time believing someone who is so competent with stats/math/programming could fail at less formulaic forms of ap, but this is actually the rule rather than the exception. I think a lot of math post-graduate types believe they are entitled to an edge simply by virtue of their intelligence and they don't put the work in. I never had any illusions about my own genius.

It is possible of course that the Wizard had some kind of secret information that we weren't privy to. That seems IMO very unlikely given the basis of his public pronouncements. Given that he chose not to share that information with us but made a prediction anyway you have to ignore it even if it does in fact, exist.
link to original post

Great post, I agree with 98% of what you said. I used mostly anecdotal evidence to choose the winner. In the case of Harris you are correct, the fact that she already did so poorly in her first presidential bid was great evidence that she would do poorly again. For me it was the little things, like in 2020 if you a Trump t-shirt on a college campus you could get stoned by the other students. In 2024 they were holding Trump rallies on college campuses, students had Trump signs on their dorm doors. Minorities were walking around their neighborhoods wearing Maga hats. Nobody was afraid to say that they were voting for Trump. This is all unscientific anecdotal evidence that pointed to the winner.
link to original post

No, you don’t understand 98% of what he wrote, but you like it because Trump. See ya guys in a few days.

There were definitely no minorities in NYC walking around with MAGA hats, lol.

One issue with mail-in ballots is that most/many states do not purge their voter registration lists of people who have moved out of state. When I vote I see that relatives who have lived with me 20 years ago, but who have since moved to other states. are still considered to be registered voters in my state.

So, if you've moved from State A to State B and left a forwarding address and State A sends out mail in ballots to everyone who is registered, the resident in State B can now vote in both states with virtually no jeopardy of anyone discovering it or taking action against them. It seems likely that some of this happened in 2020.

BTW, laws forbidding "voting twice" are presumably as effective (or less effective) as laws forbidding prostitution or marijuana possession.

But I am not yet so cynical that I believe that a reduction of (approx.) 9 million voters from 2020 to 2024 was mainly due to multiple ballots. That seems like too many to believe. Surely, a lack of enthusiasm played a role in lower voter turn-out?

Quote: EvenBob

Great post, I agree with 98% of what you said. I used mostly anecdotal evidence to choose the winner. In the case of Harris you are correct, the fact that she already did so poorly in her first presidential bid was great evidence that she would do poorly again. For me it was the little things, like in 2020 if you a Trump t-shirt on a college campus you could get stoned by the other students. In 2024 they were holding Trump rallies on college campuses, students had Trump signs on their dorm doors. Minorities were walking around their neighborhoods wearing Maga hats. Nobody was afraid to say that they were voting for Trump. This is all unscientific anecdotal evidence that pointed to the winner.

I think this type of information is often overlooked. There's a guy called Chris Camillo who pioneered the concept of "social arbitrage" which exploits metrics like this for investment purposes. He claims to be massively outperforming the market. Like 70-80% per annum. I have followed some of his advice and it is usually on the money.

The difficulty of course is turning the information such as you describe (which I wasn't aware of) into representative scientifically valid samples. Eg is this red and blue state inclusive? Are the demographics balanced? Will it get drowned out by statistical noise? etc. But if you can do you have potentially very valuable info no one - not even billionaire hedge funds - have access too.

More generally I think the concept of advantage play is sound, but advantage players are not always exemplars of advantage play. For similar reasons scientists often do bad science. Christians can be quite bad Christians. AP is like that: you are one if you practice its methods correctly whether you proclaim yourself as such, conversely self-proclaiming yourself as an AP does not make you one in all things.

Quote: Archvaldor1

I think this type of information is often overlooked. There's a guy called Chris Camillo who pioneered the concept of "social arbitrage" which exploits metrics like this for investment purposes. He claims to be massively outperforming the market. Like 70-80% per annum. I have followed some of his advice and it is usually on the money.

The difficulty of course is turning the information such as you describe (which I wasn't aware of) into representative scientifically valid samples. Eg is this red and blue state inclusive? Are the demographics balanced? Will it get drowned out by statistical noise? etc. But if you can do you have potentially very valuable info no one - not even billionaire hedge funds - have access too.

More generally I think the concept of advantage play is sound, but advantage players are not always exemplars of advantage play. For similar reasons scientists often do bad science. Christians can be quite bad Christians. AP is like that: you are one if you practice its methods correctly whether you proclaim yourself as such, conversely self-proclaiming yourself as an AP does not make you one in all things.
link to original post

Election betting may also be bridging the distinction between gambling and gaming. There is a difference, and while the terms are often used interchangeably I would say that if you are betting and also playing the game (e.g. blackjack) you are gaming. If you are betting on other people playing the game (football) you are gambling. The football players are theoretically not allowed to bet on their game. In elections the players are actually the voters, and they are also betting.

So many young guys are betting with their phones these days that the betting may be affecting political attitudes, rather than merely predicting them. Those young males appear to have had the biggest swing in partisan support from the last election. Young females are not as into betting and have a different set of social rules for discussing things among themselves, and do not appear to have had the same swing.

In 2020 I rented an apartment for several months in an area that I was staying for work. I received 2-3 ballots in the mail for people who presumably used to live there. These were not requests for a mail in ballot or a sample ballot but an actual mail in ballot. I don't see how you can't raise questions about the legitamacy of mail in ballots when they're just sending ballots out like that.

My first thought on election night was that 2020 was either an outlier year or there are serious questions that need to be asked about how Biden got 8 million more votes than Harris. Were people really that excited to vote for him? I think given the result of 2020 AP bettors saw +170 on Harris as an excellent value bet. Also as I previously said, I think they saw betting on her as a win win. They win if she wins or they win because Trump wins and that's who most ap's like. I didn't end up betting on anything but if I had to choose a side I would have been betting on Harris.

Quote: Archvaldor1

Quote:

You'll have to tell that to the Wizard, I believe he bet Harris. Would you like his PM link to clarify? I would hazard to guess there are people much sharper than everyone here who bet Harris.

How much money did you make betting on the Election?

That's a personal matter and not really relevant to the discussion of the thread. Also very provocative and annoying for non-republican voters.

I made a clear and accurate election prediction here: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HvjrwwJzL0I
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HvjrwwJzL0I

My prediction was off by about 1% which is bad for me. I managed to get the result of the UK election almost completely accurately earlier in the year as you'll see if you look at the election which was over 10 points off what the pollsters were predicting. I have not lost a bet on an international election since 2000 (yes I went for Gore). Most involved betting on the clear favorite as in this election but there were exceptions such as Trump's surprise victory in 2016. I can also call the projected vote share accurately much more so than the pollsters or the markets.

Regarding the wizard: it is very common for mathematically sophisticated and competent advantage players to fail at predicting mathematically quantifiable events.There is a long history of this going back to Wong's efforts to beat sport in the noughties and the LCTM debacle in finance. The skill sets are just completely different. I do not think his bet was sharp. The reasons:

1. A new candidate generally receives a honeymoon period with voters which is illusory, as in Kamala's case. People like to think they are fair and give a new candidate a chance. They do not yet know the skeletons in the closet of the new candidate. This chimera gets factored into the polls but vanishes almost immediately afterward.
The Wizard bet into this line, very difficult to justify.

2. Sharps invariably are contrarians. Not reflexively so, but sharps will very rarely bet into a line which is being boosted by public information for the simple reason the public usually overbets into public information. By definition you cannot make money betting into what everyone else is betting.

3. The pattern of almost every post-millenial election poll is a bias that over-represents centrist candidates at the expense of populist candidates. The political ideology is irrelevant - this affects far left socialists in Europe as much as maga types.

4. The wizard did not seem to be very clear about the actual mechanics of betting. He has consistently talked about arbitrage opportunities where none existed in the markets. The markets have to have standardized rules across independent platforms for that to be the case. Given that if Harris had performed better, that significantly would have increased the chance of a contested election, different rules sets coming into play and the real possibility of losing one wager and having the other voided.. Plus there were two attempted assassination attempts - betting into that is a mess. This doesn't give me confidence he did his homework on this or the election generally.

5. Kamala Harris was soundly destroyed in the primaries and ended up with a dismal vote share. If you have ALREADY HAD a proven failure in a major election that in itself is indicative that the candidate is unlikely to succeed. Historical precedent is more important than historical data. A classic sharp betting play is to use a historical model where others are using statistical models: historical models always outperform.

I could go on here at great length.

This may sound like I'm being overly critical. In fact the Wizard's comments were symptomatic of comments from political bettors through the election. I'm only going into this depth because people have such a hard time believing someone who is so competent with stats/math/programming could fail at less formulaic forms of ap, but this is actually the rule rather than the exception. I think a lot of math post-graduate types believe they are entitled to an edge simply by virtue of their intelligence and they don't put the work in. I never had any illusions about my own genius.

It is possible of course that the Wizard had some kind of secret information that we weren't privy to. That seems IMO very unlikely given the basis of his public pronouncements. Given that he chose not to share that information with us but made a prediction anyway you have to ignore it even if it does in fact, exist.
link to original post

Just to make it clear, I'm not disputing your expertise on this. I will go so far as to say I admire your expertise, and had I taken the time to watch your YouTube in time to make bets, I may have very well have found logic in your information as it sounds top-notch. I know very little about betting on politics and politics in general. 95% of the time I don't really care or pay attention, it's just not my thing therefore, I must defer to others and make my decision based on who I think is most accurate.

I just don't think this statement is necessarily true "There is no way any one who is sharp or who has studied elections in any depth could possibly have bet her"

I'm still curious as to how much you profited on the election? If you'd rather not say, that's totally understandable.

If there's any other election bets coming up I would love to hear your thoughts.

Quote: Sandybestdog

In 2020 I rented an apartment for several months in an area that I was staying for work. I received 2-3 ballots in the mail for people who presumably used to live there. These were not requests for a mail in ballot or a sample ballot but an actual mail in ballot. I don't see how you can't raise questions about the legitamacy of mail in ballots when they're just sending ballots out like that.

My first thought on election night was that 2020 was either an outlier year or there are serious questions that need to be asked about how Biden got 8 million more votes than Harris. Were people really that excited to vote for him? I think given the result of 2020 AP bettors saw +170 on Harris as an excellent value bet. Also as I previously said, I think they saw betting on her as a win win. They win if she wins or they win because Trump wins and that's who most ap's like. I didn't end up betting on anything but if I had to choose a side I would have been betting on Harris.
link to original post

Is it the contention that computers are completely useless at determining if mail in ballots are delivered by more than one person?

I mean, casinos don't allow you to open more than one account for a players card. If I show up and hand over my ID, they say, hey, you already have a card here. Even if I am in a different state but going to the same company like Caesars in Vegas after visiting them in NJ.

Computers in the counting of ballots can't do this? Match a person's name, birthday, etc, whatever is filled for personal info to other ballots?

I guess computers in elections don't work?

Quote: gordonm888

But I am not yet so cynical that I believe that a reduction of (approx.) 9 million voters from 2020 to 2024 was mainly due to multiple ballots. That seems like too many to believe. Surely, a lack of enthusiasm played a role in lower voter turn-out?
link to original post

I would posit the difference was due to where we were in 2020. Approximately 6 months into a major pandemic that has shut us and the world down

1). Many people still home so maybe not compelled normally to make their way to a voting booth but now having plenty of time to vote from home.

2) And feeling compelled to vote from home because the pandemic was causing such turmoil. I E. They didn't feel anything this election cycle was worth voting for but in 2020 they were so desperate they voted. I'm referring the ten million or so who voted in 2020 but not 2024.

It just feels illogical to compare the turnout for this election with 2020 without taking into account the world affecting issue at the time.

I saw some reports before the election of officials explaining how their systems were secure and prevented fraud etc. Like for instance someone mails in a ballot and then on election day they show up to vote. The system would say you already voted. I think our elections are secure and fraud is very low. I'm just curious how Biden got so many votes last election.

Quote: Sandybestdog

In 2020 I rented an apartment for several months in an area that I was staying for work. I received 2-3 ballots in the mail for people who presumably used to live there. These were not requests for a mail in ballot or a sample ballot but an actual mail in ballot. I don't see how you can't raise questions about the legitamacy of mail in ballots when they're just sending ballots out like that.

My first thought on election night was that 2020 was either an outlier year or there are serious questions that need to be asked about how Biden got 8 million more votes than Harris. Were people really that excited to vote for him? I think given the result of 2020 AP bettors saw +170 on Harris as an excellent value bet. Also as I previously said, I think they saw betting on her as a win win. They win if she wins or they win because Trump wins and that's who most ap's like. I didn't end up betting on anything but if I had to choose a side I would have been betting on Harris.
link to original post

Very obvious outlier year, hello pandemic shutdowns. Were people of any political affiliation generally happy with the COVID response?

I can’t believe the case is even being made it’s likely mail in balloting. I think that’s the result of people already having their answer and then finding a theory to rationalize it.

Quote: mcallister3200

Quote: EvenBob

Quote: Archvaldor1

Quote:

You'll have to tell that to the Wizard, I believe he bet Harris. Would you like his PM link to clarify? I would hazard to guess there are people much sharper than everyone here who bet Harris.

How much money did you make betting on the Election?

That's a personal matter and not really relevant to the discussion of the thread. Also very provocative and annoying for non-republican voters.

I made a clear and accurate election prediction here: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HvjrwwJzL0I
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HvjrwwJzL0I

My prediction was off by about 1% which is bad for me. I managed to get the result of the UK election almost completely accurately earlier in the year as you'll see if you look at the election which was over 10 points off what the pollsters were predicting. I have not lost a bet on an international election since 2000 (yes I went for Gore). Most involved betting on the clear favorite as in this election but there were exceptions such as Trump's surprise victory in 2016. I can also call the projected vote share accurately much more so than the pollsters or the markets.

Regarding the wizard: it is very common for mathematically sophisticated and competent advantage players to fail at predicting mathematically quantifiable events.There is a long history of this going back to Wong's efforts to beat sport in the noughties and the LCTM debacle in finance. The skill sets are just completely different. I do not think his bet was sharp. The reasons:

1. A new candidate generally receives a honeymoon period with voters which is illusory, as in Kamala's case. People like to think they are fair and give a new candidate a chance. They do not yet know the skeletons in the closet of the new candidate. This chimera gets factored into the polls but vanishes almost immediately afterward.
The Wizard bet into this line, very difficult to justify.

2. Sharps invariably are contrarians. Not reflexively so, but sharps will very rarely bet into a line which is being boosted by public information for the simple reason the public usually overbets into public information. By definition you cannot make money betting into what everyone else is betting.

3. The pattern of almost every post-millenial election poll is a bias that over-represents centrist candidates at the expense of populist candidates. The political ideology is irrelevant - this affects far left socialists in Europe as much as maga types.

4. The wizard did not seem to be very clear about the actual mechanics of betting. He has consistently talked about arbitrage opportunities where none existed in the markets. The markets have to have standardized rules across independent platforms for that to be the case. Given that if Harris had performed better, that significantly would have increased the chance of a contested election, different rules sets coming into play and the real possibility of losing one wager and having the other voided.. Plus there were two attempted assassination attempts - betting into that is a mess. This doesn't give me confidence he did his homework on this or the election generally.

5. Kamala Harris was soundly destroyed in the primaries and ended up with a dismal vote share. If you have ALREADY HAD a proven failure in a major election that in itself is indicative that the candidate is unlikely to succeed. Historical precedent is more important than historical data. A classic sharp betting play is to use a historical model where others are using statistical models: historical models always outperform.

I could go on here at great length.

This may sound like I'm being overly critical. In fact the Wizard's comments were symptomatic of comments from political bettors through the election. I'm only going into this depth because people have such a hard time believing someone who is so competent with stats/math/programming could fail at less formulaic forms of ap, but this is actually the rule rather than the exception. I think a lot of math post-graduate types believe they are entitled to an edge simply by virtue of their intelligence and they don't put the work in. I never had any illusions about my own genius.

It is possible of course that the Wizard had some kind of secret information that we weren't privy to. That seems IMO very unlikely given the basis of his public pronouncements. Given that he chose not to share that information with us but made a prediction anyway you have to ignore it even if it does in fact, exist.
link to original post

Great post, I agree with 98% of what you said. I used mostly anecdotal evidence to choose the winner. In the case of Harris you are correct, the fact that she already did so poorly in her first presidential bid was great evidence that she would do poorly again. For me it was the little things, like in 2020 if you a Trump t-shirt on a college campus you could get stoned by the other students. In 2024 they were holding Trump rallies on college campuses, students had Trump signs on their dorm doors. Minorities were walking around their neighborhoods wearing Maga hats. Nobody was afraid to say that they were voting for Trump. This is all unscientific anecdotal evidence that pointed to the winner.
link to original post

No, you don’t understand 98% of what he wrote, but you like it because Trump. See ya guys in a few days.
link to original post

Gosh, it seems like I understood 98% of it. But not being nearly as smart as you are how is that possible. Snicker..

Quote: EvenBob

Quote: mcallister3200

Quote: EvenBob

Quote: Archvaldor1

Quote:

You'll have to tell that to the Wizard, I believe he bet Harris. Would you like his PM link to clarify? I would hazard to guess there are people much sharper than everyone here who bet Harris.

How much money did you make betting on the Election?

That's a personal matter and not really relevant to the discussion of the thread. Also very provocative and annoying for non-republican voters.

I made a clear and accurate election prediction here: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HvjrwwJzL0I
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HvjrwwJzL0I

My prediction was off by about 1% which is bad for me. I managed to get the result of the UK election almost completely accurately earlier in the year as you'll see if you look at the election which was over 10 points off what the pollsters were predicting. I have not lost a bet on an international election since 2000 (yes I went for Gore). Most involved betting on the clear favorite as in this election but there were exceptions such as Trump's surprise victory in 2016. I can also call the projected vote share accurately much more so than the pollsters or the markets.

Regarding the wizard: it is very common for mathematically sophisticated and competent advantage players to fail at predicting mathematically quantifiable events.There is a long history of this going back to Wong's efforts to beat sport in the noughties and the LCTM debacle in finance. The skill sets are just completely different. I do not think his bet was sharp. The reasons:

1. A new candidate generally receives a honeymoon period with voters which is illusory, as in Kamala's case. People like to think they are fair and give a new candidate a chance. They do not yet know the skeletons in the closet of the new candidate. This chimera gets factored into the polls but vanishes almost immediately afterward.
The Wizard bet into this line, very difficult to justify.

2. Sharps invariably are contrarians. Not reflexively so, but sharps will very rarely bet into a line which is being boosted by public information for the simple reason the public usually overbets into public information. By definition you cannot make money betting into what everyone else is betting.

3. The pattern of almost every post-millenial election poll is a bias that over-represents centrist candidates at the expense of populist candidates. The political ideology is irrelevant - this affects far left socialists in Europe as much as maga types.

4. The wizard did not seem to be very clear about the actual mechanics of betting. He has consistently talked about arbitrage opportunities where none existed in the markets. The markets have to have standardized rules across independent platforms for that to be the case. Given that if Harris had performed better, that significantly would have increased the chance of a contested election, different rules sets coming into play and the real possibility of losing one wager and having the other voided.. Plus there were two attempted assassination attempts - betting into that is a mess. This doesn't give me confidence he did his homework on this or the election generally.

5. Kamala Harris was soundly destroyed in the primaries and ended up with a dismal vote share. If you have ALREADY HAD a proven failure in a major election that in itself is indicative that the candidate is unlikely to succeed. Historical precedent is more important than historical data. A classic sharp betting play is to use a historical model where others are using statistical models: historical models always outperform.

I could go on here at great length.

This may sound like I'm being overly critical. In fact the Wizard's comments were symptomatic of comments from political bettors through the election. I'm only going into this depth because people have such a hard time believing someone who is so competent with stats/math/programming could fail at less formulaic forms of ap, but this is actually the rule rather than the exception. I think a lot of math post-graduate types believe they are entitled to an edge simply by virtue of their intelligence and they don't put the work in. I never had any illusions about my own genius.

It is possible of course that the Wizard had some kind of secret information that we weren't privy to. That seems IMO very unlikely given the basis of his public pronouncements. Given that he chose not to share that information with us but made a prediction anyway you have to ignore it even if it does in fact, exist.
link to original post

Great post, I agree with 98% of what you said. I used mostly anecdotal evidence to choose the winner. In the case of Harris you are correct, the fact that she already did so poorly in her first presidential bid was great evidence that she would do poorly again. For me it was the little things, like in 2020 if you a Trump t-shirt on a college campus you could get stoned by the other students. In 2024 they were holding Trump rallies on college campuses, students had Trump signs on their dorm doors. Minorities were walking around their neighborhoods wearing Maga hats. Nobody was afraid to say that they were voting for Trump. This is all unscientific anecdotal evidence that pointed to the winner.
link to original post

No, you don’t understand 98% of what he wrote, but you like it because Trump. See ya guys in a few days.
link to original post

Gosh, it seems like I understood 98% of it. But not being nearly as smart as you are how is that possible. Snicker..
link to original post

That I understand 100% snicker snicker doodle doodle

Quote: gordonm888

One issue with mail-in ballots is that most/many states do not purge their voter registration lists of people who have moved out of state. When I vote I see that relatives who have lived with me 20 years ago, but who have since moved to other states. are still considered to be registered voters in my state.

So, if you've moved from State A to State B and left a forwarding address and State A sends out mail in ballots to everyone who is registered, the resident in State B can now vote in both states with virtually no jeopardy of anyone discovering it or taking action against them. It seems likely that some of this happened in 2020.

BTW, laws forbidding "voting twice" are presumably as effective (or less effective) as laws forbidding prostitution or marijuana possession.

But I am not yet so cynical that I believe that a reduction of (approx.) 9 million voters from 2020 to 2024 was mainly due to multiple ballots. That seems like too many to believe. Surely, a lack of enthusiasm played a role in lower voter turn-out?
link to original post

The Heritage Foundation has been chasing illegal voters since the Bush era and I think they are now up to about 1500 examples over two decades. Virginia found four people who voted twice in 2020.

Quote: AxelWolf

Just to make it clear, I'm not disputing your expertise on this. I will go so far as to say I admire your expertise, and had I taken the time to watch your YouTube in time to make bets, I may have very well have found logic in your information as it sounds top-notch. I know very little about betting on politics and politics in general. 95% of the time I don't really care or pay attention, it's just not my thing therefore, I must defer to others and make my decision based on who I think is most accurate.

I just don't think this statement is necessarily true "There is no way any one who is sharp or who has studied elections in any depth could possibly have bet her"

Thanks for the kind words.

I would normally not make a definitive statement like that. But it is not just my judgement here. There is a vast amount of sports betting literature-in the UK and the US which have fundamentally disparate sporting cultures which were almost entirely independent for most of my life. Advice varies but there is a commonality in virtually all of it; YOU CANNOT BET INTO PUBLIC INFORMATION AND WIN MONEY CONSISTENTLY. Perhaps there are exceptions but I'm struggling to think of any because market dynamics tend to make it impossible.

When Kamala was moving up the polls and liberal media was going crazy about it that information was factored into the line. Getting an edge requires you to more than assess the situation correctly. You must know things that other people do not.

You see this a lot in sports. Someone can be 1000% more expert in assessing a game but if the line is perfect they won't make money betting either side.

I'm trying hard to contrive exceptions to my statement because it does sound arrogant and over-generalized in retrospect. It might have just been plausible for an AP to bet into Kamala because her more progressive statements energized her core vote early on-that wouldn't have shown up in the lines. They don't show up in the polls for the same reasons you get shy Trump voters. Kamala abandoned that approach early on but there might have been a brief window of opportunity when that was an AP move. But to be honest I struggle to justify even that.

Quote: EvenBob

Gosh, it seems like I understood 98% of it. But not being nearly as smart as you are how is that possible. Snicker..

To be honest it wasn't very well written wall of text and I wouldn't judge any one who didn't understand it. I'm more impressed any one actually bothered to read it.Not that the content isn't valuable.

I think it is wise not to judge people because they don't use AP jargon. Many concepts used by ap's are basically just common sense expressed formally.There are gamblers who don't know/don't care about the jargon but have a good intuitive understanding. Better than some with formal training.

Quote: Archvaldor1

Quote: EvenBob

Gosh, it seems like I understood 98% of it. But not being nearly as smart as you are how is that possible. Snicker..

To be honest it wasn't very well written wall of text and I wouldn't judge any one who didn't understand it. I'm more impressed any one actually bothered to read it.Not that the content isn't valuable.

I think it is wise not to judge people because they don't use AP jargon. Many concepts used by ap's are basically just common sense expressed formally.There are gamblers who don't know/don't care about the jargon but have a good intuitive understanding. Better than some with formal training.
link to original post

I agree with that. When I started APing, I had no idea what AP was. I saw a Flush Attack game and saw a way to beat it. I had no idea of the math or lingo, it just looked juicy and I was proved right by others that did the math.

Quote: DRich

Quote: Archvaldor1

Quote: EvenBob

Gosh, it seems like I understood 98% of it. But not being nearly as smart as you are how is that possible. Snicker..

To be honest it wasn't very well written wall of text and I wouldn't judge any one who didn't understand it. I'm more impressed any one actually bothered to read it.Not that the content isn't valuable.

I think it is wise not to judge people because they don't use AP jargon. Many concepts used by ap's are basically just common sense expressed formally.There are gamblers who don't know/don't care about the jargon but have a good intuitive understanding. Better than some with formal training.
link to original post

I agree with that. When I started APing, I had no idea what AP was. I saw a Flush Attack game and saw a way to beat it. I had no idea of the math or lingo, it just looked juicy and I was proved right by others that did the math.
link to original post

It was actually my English teacher in High School who told us what he did during his summer vacations that got me interested in Advantage Play. He started going on about card counting in Las Vegas. At some point, he stopped himself and said, "I shouldn't be talking to you guys about this stuff". I made sure to visit him after school on occasion where he opened up and told me more. That was partly my inspiration for wanting to come to Las Vegas. However, when I arrived in in Las Vegas I wasn't even old enough to gamble. I planned to get a job save money start counting cards once I could afford it. I found one small Advantage play at the Four Queens where you were getting free slot tokens With Coupons you received from Blockbuster Video. At first they weren't checking ID or anything so I got away with that for a while. Once that dried up I was back to the Grind of working, but I could never save enough money to count cards until after I found Flush Attack.

And like you, I didn't know the, math, strategies or anything behind Flush Attack, it was just obvious you had a huge advantage when in flush Attack Mode. I was somewhat familiar with video poker, instinctively certain holds seemed logical.

I made a whopping $70 the first time I ever played it, but it wasn't the amount of money I made, it was the how and why I made the money. It was obvious I was on the right track when I noticed other "team players"(that's what slot/VP advantage players were called back then). Months later Card Player magazine came out with an article about Flush Attack that confirmed everything I pretty much already knew.

Quote: Archvaldor1

Advice varies but there is a commonality in virtually all of it; YOU CANNOT BET INTO PUBLIC INFORMATION AND WIN MONEY CONSISTENTLY. Perhaps there are exceptions but I'm struggling to think of any because market dynamics tend to make it impossible.
When Kamala was moving up the polls and liberal media was going crazy about it that information was factored into the line. Getting an edge requires you to more than assess the situation correctly. You must know things that other people do not.
link to original post

For me this is when anecdotal evidence comes into play. You have to gather as much anecdotal evidence as possible and it would have been the surprise of my life if Kamala had won this election. Absolutely everything worth looking at pointed to her loss. Dozens and dozens of pertinent facts that would absolutely make no sense if she had won. The only way in my mind a person could have been a Kamala supporter and thought she had a chance of winning had to be based on a person's emotions and not on the facts. They wanted her to win so badly they ignored everything else. As it turns out the country and the world was not greatly surprised at the outcome. There were no riots, there were no setting police cars on fires and looting. The vast majority of people expected this outcome.

A neat nerd video by Steve Ballmer. Just raw data about the USA.






I put it in this thread because of an interesting fact in it and modeling. (And this group will probably enjoy it.)

People said here and elsewhere about the last election that "women will decide it." Or that women were going to come out in numbers to vote. This video was from before the election and is shows women vote about 3% more than men. Does not say why. The prison population alone could cause 2-3%. In any case, a person doing a good model would have seen this. Numbers are probably not near final yet for 2024. We know Trump pulled in first time male voters < 30 but we can be assured Kamala did the same for female voters.

If the M/F ratio was even Trump would have probably won 3-4 more states.

If a poll does not adjust for this, there goes the accuracy.

Quote: darkoz

There were definitely no minorities in NYC walking around with MAGA hats, lol.
link to original post

Not really. I don't want to be Suspended for making a political post, but let's just say someone who was a double Minority basically did what you said they weren't doing. 💡

Quote: Nathan

Quote: darkoz

There were definitely no minorities in NYC walking around with MAGA hats, lol.
link to original post

Not really. I don't want to be Suspended for making a political post, but let's just say someone who was a double Minority basically did what you said they weren't doing. 💡
link to original post

Well they were definitely in the double minority doing that

Quote: darkoz

Quote: Nathan

Quote: darkoz

There were definitely no minorities in NYC walking around with MAGA hats, lol.
link to original post

Not really. I don't want to be Suspended for making a political post, but let's just say someone who was a double Minority basically did what you said they weren't doing. 💡
link to original post

Well they were definitely in the double minority doing that
link to original post

I'm not sure what it means to be a "minority" in NYC. Other than in about half of Staten Island and maybe one neighborhood in the Bronx and another in Queens still, I am a minority in some sense everywhere in that city, and in most US cities. Yet nowhere in the world do I have any legal protection as a minority.

That does actually make a difference in terms of elections and voting because members of distinct minority groups readily recognize one another and have an instinct to stick together. But when you're in an environment where you are no longer any kind of minority that thinking gets diluted and eventually goes away. And conversely, people like me who never considered ourselves minorities before now often do, and there is some social and voting cohesion on account of it that affects elections in ways they hadn't been affected before, and this will contribute to the inaccuracy of polls that norm for demographics.

Quote: AxelWolf

I made a whopping $70 the first time I ever played it, but it wasn't the amount of money I made, it was the how and why I made the money. It was obvious I was on the right track when I noticed other "team players"(that's what slot/VP advantage players were called back then). Months later Card Player magazine came out with an article about Flush Attack that confirmed everything I pretty much already knew.
link to original post

Really good story ty.

Gold standard poster Ann Seltzer says she doesn't understand how her poll in Iowa was so far off and she has decided to quit the polling business all together. She has yet to release any data that she used for that poll and now that she's retired we're never going to see it. People in the polling business say it was a total fake and it was used as propaganda to try and alter the election, She could become the interest of a congressional investigation.

Quote: EvenBob

Gold standard poster Ann Seltzer says she doesn't understand how her poll in Iowa was so far off and she has decided to quit the polling business all together. She has yet to release any data that she used for that poll and now that she's retired we're never going to see it. People in the polling business say it was a total fake and it was used as propaganda to try and alter the election, She could become the interest of a congressional investigation.
link to original post

To release a poll so far off is a rookie mistake. In way it is like the VW diesel cheating scandal. VW was so far off what everybody else could do nobody could understand it. Same with this poll. Polling is better without her.

Quote: AxelWolf

Quote: EvenBob

Quote: Archvaldor1

Quote: AxelWolf

As more information comes in and I talk with other Advantage Players a large majority are telling me they took Harris as they thought it was a good value bet.
link to original post

They might be advantage players at other games like blackjack but they did not have an advantage on this bet if they bet Harris. At no stage was a wager on Harris positive expectation.

There is no way any one who is sharp or who has studied elections in any depth could possibly have bet her.
link to original post

Like I said calling it a 'good value' bet is just a way to soothe yourself after you blow your money. It doesn't mean anything but it sounds really wise.
link to original post

I didn't make any personal bets on the election, I didn't see convincing enough arguments either way. However, I did have action on both Trump to win, and Trump to win the popular vote. I had no input on the decision to make those bets. I didn't even know what bets were made until well after.

]

I finally took the time to see what exactly I had action on and for how much (50%). It's good to know when you don't know about somthing well enough to bet it yourself and good to know who does know what they are doing/talking about.

Had Trump at +205 for $500

And 5 to 1 for Republican Electoral votes over 311.5 for $500.

These are the odds for the 2028 election.

J.D. Vance +250
Gavin Newsom+750
Josh Shapiro +900
Michelle Obama+1200
Pete Buttigieg +1400
Gretchen Whitmer+1600
Vivek Ramaswamy+1600
Ron DeSantis +2000

Quote: EvenBob

These are the odds for the 2028 election.

J.D. Vance +250
Gavin Newsom+750
Josh Shapiro +900
Michelle Obama+1200
Pete Buttigieg +1400
Gretchen Whitmer+1600
Vivek Ramaswamy+1600
Ron DeSantis +2000
link to original post

Be nice if they let you bet the field.

Quote: unJon

Quote: EvenBob

These are the odds for the 2028 election.

J.D. Vance +250
Gavin Newsom+750
Josh Shapiro +900
Michelle Obama+1200
Pete Buttigieg +1400
Gretchen Whitmer+1600
Vivek Ramaswamy+1600
Ron DeSantis +2000
link to original post

Be nice if they let you bet the field.
link to original post

You beat me to it.

Quote: EvenBob

These are the odds for the 2028 election.

J.D. Vance +250
Gavin Newsom+750
Josh Shapiro +900
Michelle Obama+1200
Pete Buttigieg +1400
Gretchen Whitmer+1600
Vivek Ramaswamy+1600
Ron DeSantis +2000
link to original post

They still dream of Michelle Obama for some reason.

Quote: EvenBob

These are the odds for the 2028 election.

J.D. Vance +250
Gavin Newsom+750
Josh Shapiro +900
Michelle Obama+1200
Pete Buttigieg +1400
Gretchen Whitmer+1600
Vivek Ramaswamy+1600
Ron DeSantis +2000
link to original post

A little shocking. DeSantis should be second on that list in my opinion. Shapiro will not be on the ticket of his party due to antisemitism. Buttigieg- Who would even consider betting on this? He will not be winning any elections outside of local ones in certain enclaves. Newsom could probably buy it and that's actually a buy at +750, but not much less. Gretchen Whitmer makes the losing candidates of 2016 and 2024 seem charming by comparison.

So DeSantis at +2000 is the deal of a lifetime, I'd take that up to +500 or +600. Newsom at +750 is a buy. I would give those odds on Shapiro and Buttigieg but I would rather wait for them to get puffed up a little first.

Quote: unJon

Quote: EvenBob

These are the odds for the 2028 election.

J.D. Vance +250
Gavin Newsom+750
Josh Shapiro +900
Michelle Obama+1200
Pete Buttigieg +1400
Gretchen Whitmer+1600
Vivek Ramaswamy+1600
Ron DeSantis +2000
link to original post

Be nice if they let you bet the field.
link to original post

I will take 15-1 on the field if someone wants to offer it.

Quote: DRich

Quote: unJon

Quote: EvenBob

These are the odds for the 2028 election.

J.D. Vance +250
Gavin Newsom+750
Josh Shapiro +900
Michelle Obama+1200
Pete Buttigieg +1400
Gretchen Whitmer+1600
Vivek Ramaswamy+1600
Ron DeSantis +2000
link to original post

Be nice if they let you bet the field.
link to original post

I will take 15-1 on the field if someone wants to offer it.
link to original post

Who would be crazy enough to do that? Do you think people here cannot calculate fair odds??

Quote: AZDuffman

Quote: DRich

Quote: unJon

Quote: EvenBob

These are the odds for the 2028 election.

J.D. Vance +250
Gavin Newsom+750
Josh Shapiro +900
Michelle Obama+1200
Pete Buttigieg +1400
Gretchen Whitmer+1600
Vivek Ramaswamy+1600
Ron DeSantis +2000
link to original post

Be nice if they let you bet the field.
link to original post

I will take 15-1 on the field if someone wants to offer it.
link to original post

Who would be crazy enough to do that? Do you think people here cannot calculate fair odds??
link to original post

I have no idea on how to calculate fair odds for this do you? What are the fair odds for the field?

Quote: DRich

I have no idea on how to calculate fair odds for this do you? What are the fair odds for the field?

Fair odds would be at least double or triple what they actually are.

Essentially these fields are designed for suckers who bet on name recognition. I doubt any one would have had Obama, Biden or Trump four years before they first entered office. The only one who was an established name politician before they became president was Biden, who had numerous failed attempts at the presidency and was written off by most serious pundits until quite late in the primary, and probably only succeeded because of covid-a very unpredictable event.

How this works in recent history: a narrative builds around a specific individual for quite random reasons we can't envisage now. That isn't going to happen with known politicians. People are fed up and want something different.

I would lay that field. The exception would be Michelle Obama-she has very impressive interpersonal psychology like her husband-this is a huge electoral asset. She would be an effective candidate if she actually stood. But she doesn't seem to want to and there is no particular reason to suppose she would change her mind. You can't really predict or rule out something like that-it is pure guesswork.

Quote: Archvaldor1

...
I would lay that field. The exception would be Michelle Obama-she has very impressive interpersonal psychology like her husband-this is a huge electoral asset. She would be an effective candidate if she actually stood. But she doesn't seem to want to and there is no particular reason to suppose she would change her mind. You can't really predict or rule out something like that-it is pure guesswork.
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No I think if she was able to run, they would have run her in 2020 instead of trotting out Biden. If she both could run and really wanted it she could have stiff-armed Hillary out of the way in 2016 as well.

I don't think she can run. The reason why is rude and will be perceived as a grotesque political comment so I won't say it.

Quote: DRich

Quote: AZDuffman

Quote: DRich

Quote: unJon

Quote: EvenBob

These are the odds for the 2028 election.

J.D. Vance +250
Gavin Newsom+750
Josh Shapiro +900
Michelle Obama+1200
Pete Buttigieg +1400
Gretchen Whitmer+1600
Vivek Ramaswamy+1600
Ron DeSantis +2000
link to original post

Be nice if they let you bet the field.
link to original post

I will take 15-1 on the field if someone wants to offer it.
link to original post

Who would be crazy enough to do that? Do you think people here cannot calculate fair odds??
link to original post

I have no idea on how to calculate fair odds for this do you? What are the fair odds for the field?
link to original post

I can tell you can't. Because you want 15-1 for a field of many that is paying more than that 3 of the 7 individuals and 2 others are very close to that. Thus to say you want 15-1 if ANY of them comes in when the odds on ONE are 14-1 is insane.

In simpler terms it would be like someone saying they will pay 3-1 if the Steelers win the SB, 3-1 for the Bills, and 3-1 for KC then you said, "I will take 3-1 if ANY of them win if you want to offer it."

Quote: AZDuffman

Quote: DRich

Quote: AZDuffman

Quote: DRich

Quote: unJon

Quote: EvenBob

These are the odds for the 2028 election.

J.D. Vance +250
Gavin Newsom+750
Josh Shapiro +900
Michelle Obama+1200
Pete Buttigieg +1400
Gretchen Whitmer+1600
Vivek Ramaswamy+1600
Ron DeSantis +2000
link to original post

Be nice if they let you bet the field.
link to original post

I will take 15-1 on the field if someone wants to offer it.
link to original post

Who would be crazy enough to do that? Do you think people here cannot calculate fair odds??
link to original post

I have no idea on how to calculate fair odds for this do you? What are the fair odds for the field?
link to original post

I can tell you can't. Because you want 15-1 for a field of many that is paying more than that 3 of the 7 individuals and 2 others are very close to that. Thus to say you want 15-1 if ANY of them comes in when the odds on ONE are 14-1 is insane.

In simpler terms it would be like someone saying they will pay 3-1 if the Steelers win the SB, 3-1 for the Bills, and 3-1 for KC then you said, "I will take 3-1 if ANY of them win if you want to offer it."
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That’s not what the field bet is. The field bet is that the winner is NOT on the list of people you can otherwise bet on.

Quote: unJon

Be nice if they let you bet the field.
link to original post

If they did, it would probably pay around even money. That is because futures bets like this tend to have about a 30% house edge. Throw that in and it meets that standard.

Candidate	Pays	Implied Probability	Actual Probability
Vance	+250	0.285714	0.217734
Newsom	+750	0.117647	0.089655
Shapiro	+900	0.100000	0.076207
M. Obama	+1200	0.076923	0.058621
Buttigieg	+1400	0.066667	0.050805
Whitmer	+1600	0.058824	0.044828
Ramaswamy	+1600	0.058824	0.044828
DeSantis	+2000	0.047619	0.036289
Field	+100	0.500000	0.381034
Total		1.312217	1.000000

So, for the next four years, we can take shots at politicians and then just say that's why the odds are long.

What sort of fool lays out money on a bet they can't collect for over four years?

Quote: billryan

What sort of fool lays out money on a bet they can't collect for over four years?
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If the ROI is there why not? Some on here wanted to bet that Trump would run in 2028. That is a sure thing so if the person has proper reputation for paying one should take it. Unless you are tying the money up in escrow that will not pay off. I could see both sides opening a crypto account and having to post more money if the value falls below the payout like they did in "The Big Short" with swaps.

Quote: AZDuffman

Quote: billryan

What sort of fool lays out money on a bet they can't collect for over four years?
link to original post

If the ROI is there why not? Some on here wanted to bet that Trump would run in 2028. That is a sure thing so if the person has proper reputation for paying one should take it. Unless you are tying the money up in escrow that will not pay off. I could see both sides opening a crypto account and having to post more money if the value falls below the payout like they did in "The Big Short" with swaps.
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I wouldn't use ROI for something like this; I'd look at the Yield.