Polymarket and the 2024 US general election, explained

As the US election inches closer, online betting markets have captured the attention of analysts curious to see if they can tell us anything about the state of the race. One of these markets is Polymarket, which allows some users to bet on which candidate, Republican Donald Trump or Democrat Kamala Harris, will win in November. However, the legality of the site for voters in the US is a grey area as it is illegal for the bets to be offered but not illegal for people in the US to place bets. Since the site is operated overseas, the US government has very little power to shut it down or prevent citizens from placing their money in the market.

What is Polymarket?

The betting site allows users to place bets on sports, politics, pop culture, and science, among other categories. The site was launched in 2020, and is one of its kind. Nevertheless, the platform is becoming a household name as the amount of bets placed on the election outcome nears $2 billion.

Polymarket and the 2024 election

Those who promote the use of betting markets to gauge the intention of voters have been criticized by some who see the influence of foreign actors as a serious inhibiting factor to site being an accurate representation of what the electorate is feeling. Currently, Polymarket has the chance that Donald Trump wins the election at 60 percent, which is much higher than the polls would indicate. Curiously, the founder of FiveThirtyEight, one of the primary poll collators in US elections, Nate Silver, became an advisor to the site this year.

A clip from Real Time With Bill Maher has been circulating online. It features billionaire Mark Cuban and David Hogg talking about the Polymarket users, particularly those that favor Donald Trump placing their bets.

Hogg, a gun control advocate and survivor of the Parkland High school shooting, argued that many Trump supports are placing their bets favoring the former president “thinking that’s going to determine the outcome of the election.” Investing can create a herd mentality, which is often referred to when trouble brews in financial markets and investors begin pulling their money out of the markets. In the case of Polymarket, Hogg is hypothesizing that some Trump supports who believe that he can win the election see that others believe so too and don’t want to lose out if he is victorious.