Without former President Donald Trump in office, the best election betting sites have struggled mightily to come up with futures and props for the current intrigue surrounding the nascent Biden administration.
And this is despite the fact that there’s an almost infinite number of compelling and worthwhile political wagers that could – and, frankly, should – be offered on various Joe Biden odds and Kamala Harris odds.
And then there’s this:
Yesterday, during a televised FOX News interview, host Maria Bartiromo put the issue directly to Trump, asking about his future political aspirations:
“Will you run again, Mr. President? Are you considering 2024?”
In response, Trump did what he always does, citing the public enthusiasm for his candidacy (which is well-represented at every major Vegas election betting site, where Trump is the heavy favorite to win the 2024 GOP nod).
Per The Donald:
“Well, based on every poll, they want me to run again, but we’re going to take a look and we’ll see. First steps first, we have to see what we can do with the House [in the 2022 Midterms]. …
I think we have a very, very good chance of taking back the House. I think we have a chance to do better in the Senate. We need leadership in the Senate, which frankly, we don’t have. …
We’ll make our decision after that.”
Unfortunately, though these comments have been widely reported, betting lines on whether or not Trump will declare a 2024 Presidential run are completely nonexistent.
In a saner reality, they’d be dominating the odds boards.
In fact, right now, the only political bets available are on the same lines that have been up for the last month or two. You can bet on party nominees and 2024 general election futures, and you can wager on whether or not former Presidential candidate and Google Search Sweetheart™ Andrew Yang will win the NYC mayoral election on November 2.
For those curious about Yang’s latest foray into big league politics, he’s actually favored at Bovada and BetOnline, pulling odds of -175 at both sportsbooks.
But in the grand scheme, Yang is small potatoes. More interesting, even if it’s somewhat long in the tooth, are the big potatoes.
You can find odds on those pols at all three election betting sites, which we’ve replicated below. We’ve included each candidate’s previous odds in parentheses for comparison.
2024 Presidential Election Winner
- Kamala Harris +450 (+450)
- Joe Biden +550 (+550)
- Donald Trump Sr. +800 (+800)
- Nikki Haley +1200 (+1200)
- Mike Pence +1600 (+1600)
- Michelle Obama +2000 (+2000)
- Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez +2500 (+2500)
- Pete Buttigieg +2500 (+2500)
- Ron DeSantis +2500 (+2500)
- Andrew Yang +3000 (+3000)
- + More
With no changes in several weeks, it appears that the betting volume on these futures is simply too low right now to meaningfully move the lines.
While action will pick up as the year progresses, this current inaction is also indicative of the utter lack of interesting political prop bets that would vest much sooner.
Basically, bettors have no urgency to wager on these odds, and there’s nothing attracting them to the current political betting market otherwise. That needs to change.
- Kamala Harris +400 (+400)
- Joe Biden +450 (+450)
- Donald Trump Sr. +650 (+650)
- Ron DeSantis +1000 (+1000)
- Nikki Haley +1200 (+1200)
- Mike Pence +1400 (+1400)
- Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez +2500 (+2500)
- Michelle Obama +3300 (+3300)
- Candace Owens +4000 (+4000)
- Donald Trump Jr. +4000 (+4000)
- + More
Ditto across the board.
- Joe Biden +100
- Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez +300
- Kamala Harris +350
- Elizabeth Warren +800
- Bernie Sanders +1000
- Michelle Obama +1000
- Andrew Cuomo +1200
- Ted Cruz +1200
- Josh Hawley +1200
- Pete Buttigieg +1500
- Tom Cotton +1500
- Michael Bennet +2000
- Cory Booker +2000
- Ivanka Trump +2000
- Mike Bloomberg +3000
- Kanye West +5000
- Mark Cuban +5000
- Candace Owens +5000
- Elon Musk +7500
MyBookie AG offers the most interesting set of lines for the 2024 Presidential race, though far fewer total candidates are listed. (We’ve included only the top 10 candidates at Bovada and BetOnline, but both sites have dozens more to choose from. MyBookie, however, has only the 19 candidates you see above.)
Also, if you take a look at these names, there are staggering omissions and extremely strange odds given the current political climate in the US.
Most notably, Bovada and BetOnline sensibly have VP Harris as the 2024 Presidential favorite (as incumbents usually are), pulling odds in the region of +400 to +450.
But at MyBookie, Biden is the favorite to win reelection at even odds, which are, ironically, the oddest odds you’ll ever see.
In fact, MyBookie gives the wildly radical and nationally unpopular AOC better odds than Harris, at +300 compared to the Veep’s +350.
Meanwhile, Elizabeth Warren has +800 odds, Bernie Sanders (who will be like 103 years old in 2024) has +1000 odds, and – most bafflingly of all – disgraced wannabe mafioso Andrew Cuomo is sitting at +1200 to be POTUS.
But if you want to see the biggest of these countless fails at MyBookie, check out Donald Trump’s odds.
Oh yeah, you can’t.
That’s because MyBookie doesn’t even have Donald Trump odds.
That’s right, the guy who’s the overwhelming favorite to win the Republican nomination in 2024 – the guy who just won more votes than any GOP candidate in history and is polling more strongly than ever across the entire USA – isn’t even worth a wager.
And what about Ron DeSantis? He just won the CPAC 2021 straw poll as the most popular non-Trump candidate to run atop the Republican ticket.
Bovada and BetOnline have DeSantis in their top 10, but MyBookie doesn’t even think he’s worth a listing. Instead, the book has settled for Elon Musk, who’s not even eligible to be President.
Actually, we’ll give MyBookie credit there. If they can make money selling Presidential odds on a guy who literally cannot ever legally be President, more power to them.
Nevertheless, the main takeaway is simply this: All three Vegas election sportsbooks need to do better.
If we see something interesting on the political news wire, we expect betting odds to be posted on that interesting thing ASAP.
Make it happen, folks. I mean, c’mon, man!
Speaking of which:
2021 Joe Biden Presidential Mental Fitness Test Update
Via BetOnline Sportsbook
Will Joe Biden complete his first term as US President?
- Yes -175 (-175)
- No +135 (+135)
Amazingly, despite his continued absence on the national stage (Biden is now the longest-serving President in the last 100 years to go this long into his first term without holding an official press conference, SOTU address, or congressional address), bettors – who should know far, far better – still think he’ll be able to last all the way to 2025 in the White House (or any other house, for that matter).
We expected these odds to flip-flop weeks ago, and while that’s definitely coming, the good news is that you still have time to get a decent payout on taking the obvious outcome at +135.
If you snooze, you lose.
Unless, of course, you’re a geriatric mental patient running for Leader of the Free World™.
Source: Conservative Brief