Bookmakers Stand to Lose Big With a Trump Win
- Odds on Trump slashed from 3-1 to 15-8 in recent weeks
- ”We’ve never had a presidential candidate so popular amongst bettors,” says Paddy Power rep
- ”We’ve been seeing five-figure bets for Trump consistently since the turn of the year,” the Paddy Power rep added
- Turnover on Trump betting 300 more times that of the 2012 ballot, reports William Hill
The US Presidential race is the most wagered on non sporting event in the world and the 2016 campaign between GOP nominee real estate magnate Donald Trump and former Secretary of State and one time First Lady Hillary Clinton is certain to shatter all previous records.
The books are seeing heavy exposure on Trump should he win. Odds for Trump winning were recently slashed from 3-1 to 15-8.
“The weight of money that we’re seeing on Trump has forced us to cut his odds. We’ve never had a presidential candidate so popular amongst bettors, and should he win it will be the worst political result for the bookmaking industry in history,” said Féilim Mac An Iomaire, a spokesman for Irish bookmaker Paddy Power.
Paddy Power’s odds of Trump winning were coming in around 23 percent back in March. They are now 35 percent.
“Normally the shorter priced candidate will attract the majority of the large bets, but there’s very little [difference] between him and Hillary in this sense as we’ve been seeing five-figure bets for Trump consistently since the turn of the year,” Mac An Iomaire said.
The UK’s biggest bookmaker, William Hill, slashed their odds on Trump from 150-1 when he initially entered the race to 7-4 this week.
Joe Crilly, press officer at William Hill, revealed to Market Watch that the turnover for bets on this U.S. election in total is more than 300 percent times bigger than for the ballot in 2012.
“Trump becoming president would not quite be in the Leicester City league of upsets but in political betting it would certainly ‘trump’ the comparatively short upsets of the EU Referendum outcome and the Tories winning the General Election,”
Sportsbooks the likes of BetOnline were even offering wagering opportunities on Trump’s acceptance speech at this week’s Republican Convention.
Bets the likes of How Many Times Trump Uses Catchphrase “Crooked Hillary” were seeing 76 percent on the OVER 4.5.
Odds on Clinton had dropped a quarter point from -300 to -275 at most books this week.
- Gilbert Horowitz, Gambling911.com
