Apart from predicting the outcome of the Presidential Election 2012, betting on Next President has been quite popular with 40 million euros having exchanged hands in Betfair betting exchange alone! While 35m euros were being matched on Obama’s win, the developing trend of the betting odds revealed the final result of the election!
I first discussed about trading the betting odds of the Presidential election 5 months ago. Back then we were getting paid $100 if we bet $200 on Obama’s win. 3 months later President’s chance to remain in the White House climbed to 60%. The uptrend was beginning to be establishing, although the betting odds were fluctuating inside a trading range.
A couple of weeks passed and I posted several trading graphs relating to the Presidential election, when I also bumped into InTrade and Iowa Electronic Markets for the first time. The popularity of the US election in futures trading as well as in Betfair trading had increased substantially. A month ago Pew Research Center published a poll, according to which Romney had taken the lead. Yet, the betting markets strongly disagreed with that Pew poll.
Finally, a week ago we examined how the debates and hurricane Sandy made an impact on the election betting odds.
The only instance that the uptrend of Obama’s betting odds seemed to be in danger happened in the end of the debates. At that time the trend line was briefly breached but it quickly resumed and went on to retest the resistance level of 80%.
Predicting the US Presidential election based on the trends of the betting odds or futures prices was relatively uneventful. Buying the dips and selling the highs would certainly make money for futures or Betfair traders, like the pro poker player who had got six figures at risk on US election 2012! Predicting similar political events like Greek elections 2012 with the help of betting odds has also been quite profitable in the past. Thus, you don’t have to wait 4 years to trade in the next Presidential election!
