Jacob Ogles
The worlds of gambling addicts and political junkies converge with futures markets like PredictIt or Iowa Electronic Markets, where the game of election prognostication gets serious.
Pollsters put plenty of effort into gauging whom voters will elect, but you have to check these markets for folks with real skin in the game.
Would Gwen Graham be a smarter bet to win the Democratic nomination than Philip Levine?
How wild a bet would it be for Republicans to hold the U.S. House next year?
And where do gambling politicos place their bets when it comes to Florida politics?
PredictIt
A project of the Victoria University of Wellington, PredictIt allows investors to buy shares in political outcomes and converts the results into U.S. cents. Basically, you can invest in an election result where the market sets the odds, and you get $1 once the outcome becomes clear if your bet was right.
Right now, you can still jump into the market for outcomes on the Tuesday primary elections, including major Florida races.
As of Sunday night, the market for the Florida Democratic primary was selling Gwen Graham at 79 cents and Philip Levine at 20, despite many polls showing the two frontrunners neck and neck; Andrew Gillum goes for just a nickel.
On the Republican side, the market gives greater odds for Ron DeSantis at 87 cents, while Adam Putnam sits at 16 cents.
The market for the Democratic primary of Florida’s 5th Congressional District offers good news for incumbent Al Lawson, whose victory is selling at 95 cents.
In the 9th District Democratic fight, incumbent Darren Soto is selling at 92 cents while challenger Alan Grayson trades at 14 cents.
That means Soto is going for almost as much as incumbent Stephanie Murphy, selling for 94 cents in the 7th, where Chardo Richardson has been marked down to 5 cents.
In the 6th District Republican primary, Republican Michael Waltz goes for 85 cents while John Ward goes for 18.
In the 27th District Democratic primary, a Donna Shalala victory goes for 92 cents. On the Republican side, the market sells Maria Salazar at 98 cents and Bruno Barreiro at just 7.
IEM
The nonprofit Iowa Electronic Markets, operated by the University of Iowa’s Henry B. Tippie College of Business, remains the only political futures market legally operating in the United States. It creates a futures market on real-world events that operates like a stock market.
This market looks at who will control Congress once the 2018 elections run their course. You can bet, for example, on whether Republicans will hold the majority in the House with 217 seats or more, or bet against that outcome. And you can place a bet on whether the GOP gains seats at all.
A look at the House markets as of Sunday night shows most betting against the Republican House. The last price on the bet of the GOP having a minority sat at 0.73, compared to a 0.131 price on Republicans keeping the chamber and a 0.141 bet on Republicans gaining seats.
But the Senate remains a different story. The last price as of Sunday on Democrats taking the chamber rang in at 0.251, while the price of Republicans barely keeping a majority came in at 0.384 and the possibility of the GOP gaining seats landed at 0.349.
Like stocks, you can also see how the markets change over time. For example, you can see that over the last month, the market on Republicans holding the House plummeted. In the same time, the market on Republicans holding the Senate slightly increased.
