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Lets explore Polymarket and what bets are the best choice to make money in this election. You can bring alternative platforms if you want.
This post is not advice, just some ideas. I write this here because I am curious if I see multiple people who find a particular example to seem like an opportunity. I recall reading that only 12.7% of people who have used Polymarket have had positive returns. https://www.bitcoinsensus.com/news/polymarket-only-12-of-users-achieve-profits/
So, I am not encouraging anyone to bet money and to use this platform. Statistically, it is is a bad idea for most people.
In addition to the political element, the culture war element can be using politically incorrect knowledge to gain an edge.
Lets start with the sure ones: https://polymarket.com/event/california-presidential-election-winner
Black voters for Trump https://polymarket.com/event/trump-increase-share-of-black-voters
If Trump gets 13% of greater black votes at 21.95% return.
https://polymarket.com/event/will-trump-win-30-or-more-of-black-men?tid=1730390110917
Trump not getting 30% of black men at 23.45% return.
So which of the two is more likely? Seems that both are likely, but based on the sentiment and polling, Trump will increase his share of black voters.
Similar questions about women
https://polymarket.com/event/will-kamala-win-60-or-more-of-women
Only 14% choose this when Biden won 57% of women. Seems to be undercounted.
This one is with the cat lady picture
https://polymarket.com/event/will-kamala-do-better-than-biden-with-unmarried-women
Seems a likely yes with 31.57% return
https://polymarket.com/event/who-will-win-white-women
White women question. Trump won with white women vs both Biden and Clinton. This gives a bigger return, with bigger uncertainty. However, now there is Roe v Wade as a factor.
I am not going to explore the question of who gets elected as there is too much uncertainty and also I wonder if there is any possibility of ballot harvesting and fraud. And here is the Israel question.
https://polymarket.com/event/us-arms-embargo-on-israel-in-2024?tid=1730390749663
This one is until end of 2024.
Considering how powerful the Jewish lobby is in the USA, to put it in more politically correct terms, I find an arms embargo from the USA towards Israel as highly unlikely. However, the people who wrote this question are sneaky and offered this as sufficient for it to be yes: A limited embargo, restricting only certain categories of military equipment, will qualify for a "Yes" resolution.
This is a pattern with various questions, asking something that the expected answer would be X, but when clicking it, it gives a loophole where it becomes yes under less stringent requirements.
Like this example:
https://polymarket.com/event/will-the-us-confirm-that-aliens-exist-in-2024?tid=1730391254453
A member of the cabinet claiming this is not sufficient to be a genuine confirmation! Even that is still highly unlikely, of course.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't betting on winning/losing demographic groups just a bet on exit polling? Or will it resolve based on county/precinct level voting data correlated across the country?
It just feels like betting on an NFL players PFF grade.
Correct.
Depending on the question, some questions are more predictable than how players are rated because even good players have bad matches, and even a rare bad year, while some scenarios are more likely than that. I am not sure if PFF grade is about how an NFL player is rated over the year.
I have no idea about anything NFL related so I would never even consider betting anything on it but I have some knowledge about politics. Seems that 30% of black men voting for Trump, isn't that likely.
Same with Harris increasing the % of unmarried women over Biden after roe vs wade which has a 79% for yes but actually gives 22.55% return.
Sport results can be more unpredictable than some scenarios about what will happen.
But this is indeed gambling, and it there are comparisons to be made with betting on sports. It even has an option for sports betting. Since most people using the platform lose money, I am not going to counter too much your skepticism. Most questions are going to involve things that aren't predictable. The most predictable possible choices give little return. And if you think that something is predictable while it gives a decent return, you might be missing something. But markets aren't perfect, and people might be underestimating how likely something is too.
Sorry, should have explained more.
PFF is a company that puts together a numerical grade indicating the performance of every player based on experts subjective viewing of each game. It is meant to bridge the gap between the mostly objective stats (the QB threw the ball for X yards, the LB made Y tackles) and the totally subjective eye test which fans can only apply while watching the game, and even then only to players they pay attention to. PFF grades are meant to capture things like "the linebacker didn't make the tackle, but he filled the A gap forcing the running back to cut back and get tackled for a loss." It's a tool used to compare players, based on expert opinions.
If one bets on the outcome of an NFL game, one is mostly safe from match fixing short of a real serious operation, because the stakeholders all value the outcome of the game greatly, and the product is visible on the field so there's a good chance people might pick up on obvious point shaving over time. Betting on an objective stats, like catches or yards or sacks, is riskier for point shaving because it's somewhat possible for a team to force or allow certain statistical outcomes to occur without impacting the outcome of the game.
But betting on PFF grades, you have no protection against PFF just getting the grade wrong. Or theoretically of PFF just fixing the result. And certainly not from PFF being biased, liking the vibes of one player instead of another.
In the same way, when you bet on Trump winning 30% of black voters, you're betting on an exit poll showing that Trump got 30% of the black vote. Especially when you get deep into smaller samples like minority vote count. So much depends on the pollsters secret sauce, how they weight different sample sizes to balance it towards what they think the truth looks like. You have no protection from the pollster making an error, or just shrugging and saying "idk maybe it's an outlier."
Now probably the market for those bets is small enough that it won't matter, it won't make sense to put the fix in. But it wouldn't be hard to do, and the bettor would have zero protection against it.
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