In the middle of December, the intense US presidential race officially ended with victory for Joe Biden, who received 306 electoral votes. However, Trump supporters still don’t accept the results. The reason is not only political views – many people have spent money to bet on the re-election of Trump in the bookmaker’s offices. ” Bookmaker Ratings” examined how things are in the betting market after the victory of the Democrats.
According to the bookmaker Bovada, the election was the most popular betting event in 2020. The presidential race was betted with 30% more money than the Super Bowl, the premier sporting event in the United States.
The record was not only the number of accepted bets but also the number of individual bets. So, on election day, an unknown British businessman bet $5 million on Trump’s re-election.
The Republican candidate had been the favorite in the presidential race for a long time.
Even the next day after the end of the vote, the bookmakers gave odds of 1.44 for his victory, which corresponded to 70% probability. Bookmaker quotes misled many players: according to BetOnline, Trump’s victory accounted for about 60% of all bets accepted on the election results.
The most desperate betting enthusiasts believed in Trump’s ability to revise the election results and continued to give money to bookmakers even when Biden’s victory was almost obvious.
Helen, living in Amsterdam put $170 thousand on the success of the Republican candidate on the Betfair betting exchange. Now she has far fetched plans to sue gambling sites along with other bettors who lost money in the elections.
The unlucky gamblers argue that bookmakers had no right to count their bets as losing, as Republicans are still trying to challenge the vote in some states. Furthermore, they accuse gambling companies of changing the terms of the bets. For example, before November 27, Betfair promised to calculate the rates when a candidate receives the majority of the electoral votes but later changed the wording to “the projected majority of votes”.
The “Trump inauguration”, will indeed take place on January 20 – though only online. Supporters of the president have created an event on Facebook called “The Second Inauguration Ceremony of President Donald Trump” and intend to announce his re-election.
Meanwhile, passions continue to heat up: some of the losing players are even threatening bookmakers with physical violence.