2016 was the pinnacle of US election betting for the punters of the world. The United States experienced their most divisive, most disruptive and most discordant Presidential election ever. People in every country, whether they were punters or not, had an opinion on each of the candidates, and they all expressed their points of view loudly and often. People who wanted to join in US election betting and place a wager on which candidate would ultimately win the election had an experience second to none, as odds fluctuated every day.
When the ballots were finally counted and Donald Trump was elected as the next President of the United States, it was seen that all the polls and predictions were not going to get this one right. In fact, some of the bookmakers in the UK got it so wrong that they even paid out Clinton bettors in advance, which cost them a huge loss by the time election day was over. Even as the polls were closing and results beginning to come in, the bookmakers continued to update their odds. Even so, the bookmakers were willing to call Trump the winner before any of the news channels admitted that they too had got things so wrong. In politics especially, as in so much else, you can never underestimate the underdog.
The Year of the Underdog
In a year that has seen major payouts for underdog bettors, from Brexit to Leicester City, to Villanova’s March Madness win, and even the Denver Broncos’ underdog win in the Super Bowl, a Trump win, which started out at 25/1 odds on his winning the presidency, fits right in with this extremely unpredictable year in betting.
Hillary Clinton’s chances of becoming the 45th president of the United States still looked pretty solid in the final stretch of the campaign. Then the FBI announced the investigation into newly found Clinton emails, and the odds changed dramatically once more. The FBI further announced that it could not be sure how long it would take to assess whether the material was significant or not, and the overall effect of this on the election was starting to be felt. In a campaign as full of insults and minimal policy discussions as this one was, it was at first difficult to say how much public opinion was swayed by these disclosures. Even the announcement a few days later by the FBI that no criminal charges were warranted against Hillary Clinton regarding the latest batch of emails, did not repair the damage done by the original announcement.
Millions of Dollars Poured into the Betting Sites
Record numbers of bettors, from Ireland to Iowa, poured millions into the US election betting sites, hoping for a financial windfall. The US election betting has always been a huge betting experience, but this one passed all expectations. One of the UK gambling companies said that bets on the sites had reached over six million dollars since the race opened four years ago. This is at least double the amount spent on 2012 US election betting.
Online Election Betting
Online US election betting has certainly reached a peak and you can try out wagering at https://usaonlinebetting.org/election. There is another five years to go before the world has to go through the excitement again, and probably all records in the US election betting will be broken again. Clearly online election betting is interesting and exciting and could be a highly profitable venture.
