September 2024 Gamblers Were More Bullish than Voters on Harris Win

Excel charts make for an ugly blog. So why not a gratuitous photo of Sugar in front of a mid-1960s Facel-Vega III?


IEM VS: IEM vote share contracts; WAF VS: Werewolves Adjustment Factor applied to IEM VS

At the end of September 2024, IEM voter share contracts averaged $0.56 for the Democratic presidential candidate (Harris), and $0.47 for the Republican presidential candidate. By applying the Werewolves Adjustment Factor (WAF) to account for traders' historic over- and under-valuations of Democratic and Republic vote shares, at the end of September 2024, a good guess might be 53% of the votes for Harris and 48% for Trump (which adds up to more than 100% of the vote share--but hey, the smart money had spoken, if not amongst themselves).

Maxim Lott and John Stossel's Election Betting Odds site tracks presidential bets made on commercial gambling sites. On September 30, their method gave Harris a 52% chance of winning. In the case of both Lott-Stossel and WAF VS, there's about a 5 percentage point margin in favor of Harris.

By contrast, polls tracked by both the New York Times and Nate Silver's Silver Bulletin showed just a 3 percentage point margin on September 30.

Of course none of this matters for the election because national voter shares don't decide who becomes President in January 2025. But if by November 5 the election polls as of September turned out to be correct, the two-party vote share would be 52% for Harris and 48% for Trump--which means that September holders of Democratic contracts would probably lose about 9% on their positions, while holders of Republican contracts would earn about 2%.

It's worth noting, though, that we're not talking huge wins or losses in the IEM market. Only 461 units were purchased on Democratic contracts in September, for a grand total of $260.11 wagered. Republican vote share contracts wagered $113.88--bringing the grand total for the entire 2024 election cycle to $1,405.24. This compares pretty well to the 2020 cycle over the same period ($1,755.52), but it's not even a drop in the ocean compared to the nearly $1.2 billion in wagers tracked by Lott and Stossel. Yet both the academic and commercial markets seem to be converging on similar answers: Harris gets more votes. But it's hard so see how average Democratic contract holder could make back their stakes.

So the big lesson is one that everyone should have already known: if you want to make money on gambling, it pays to be the house.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Sugar Gets Around: Jardin du Luxembourg

Image
It wasn't long after we hit town in September that we started looking for neighborhoods with good spaces to walk dogs. Turns out, Paris parks are pretty dog-unfriendly. One exception is the Jardin du Luxembourg in the 6th Arrondissement. Marie de Medici, widow of Henri IV and mother of Louis XIII, added these gardens to her Palais du Luxembourg in 1612--part of which is now given over to dogs and their walkers (tourists and other Parisiens appear to be welcome as well). Le Palais du Luxembourg. Fit for a dog. Disturbingly, like at Ranelagh , the garden depicts yet another act of classical savagery. At la fontaine Médicis, a sculpture shows the giant cyclops Polyphemus moments before descending on lovers Acis and Galatea and crushing the former with a rock. Polyphemus, hanging junk and all, moments before his jealous rampage. Not fit for a dog. It's actually a grand and beautiful sculpture in bronze, stone, and marble. And if you bear any resentment against Polyphemus for destr
Read more

Art Nouveau Fever Dream: 29 Ave. Rapp

Image
Like his contemporary Hector Guimard, Jules Lavirotte won architecture awards for the Art Nouveau façade of his signature work. But 29 Ave. Rapp in the 7th Arr., designed by Lavirotte in 1900 with extensive ceramic tiling by Alexandre Bigot, makes Guimard's Castel Béranger look like a model of restraint. If Guimard was the Sly and the Family Stone of Art Nouveau, Lavirotte would be Parliament-Funkadelic; maybe not as groundbreaking, but a little funkier and a lot weirder. The Lavirotte building has too much to appreciate in one go--I've been back a few times, and still can't take it all in. In addition to the floral details ubiquitous to Art Nouveau, sculpted bulls and numerous mascarons (both human and vegetable) adorn the façade, while the ironwork includes peacocks, cats stalking birds, and notably, a lizard for the front door handle. According to some, "lézard" used to be French slang for male genitalia. This from a country that takes a rooster for its nation
Read more

Side Trips: The Arctic Circle

Image
Sunset, about 3:30 PM, Sinettä, Lapland, Finland, latitude N 66° 38' 53", longitude E 25 27' 47". Is the Arctic Circle cold in late-January/early February? Surprisingly, the answer for us was "it depends." The lowest low temperature for the three days we were in Rovaniemi was -10°c (about 12° F) but usually around 0°c (32° F) during the 7 or so hours of daylight. Basically, in the ranges that are normal for a winter in Tahoe, and warmer at times than Paris in the month prior to our trip. Not at all as depicted in the 1913 silent film Les Drames du Pôle. Which meant it was warm enough to walk around comfortably outside, but also warm enough to cloud up and snow--which meant we had no chance to see the Aurora Borealis, which is what motivated the trip in the first place. If you've ever got skunked on a fishing trip or surf vacation ("you should have been here yesterday!") you know the feeling. The good news was that rural Lapland is beautiful in
Read more