Rollercoaster odds keep bookies guessing in vote count
Odds for US presidential election have flipped again as Joe Biden pulls ahead of Donald Trump.
The rollercoaster vote count in the US presidential election has swung the odds back into Joe Biden’s favour to the relief of bookies, who were facing a multimillion-dollar bath in the event of a Donald Trump victory.
After the Sportsbet odds for Mr Trump shortened to $1.12 on Wednesday following victories in key states, overnight counting has seen those odds lengthen to $6.50.
At the same time Mr Biden’s have plunged from $5 to $1.11 on Thursday morning.
Sportsbet spokesman Richard Hummerston described the fluctuations as nothing short of extraordinary, as counting continued.
“This is almost too farfetched for an episode of ‘House of Cards’ but if we learned anything in the last 24 hours, it ain’t over, till it’s over,” Mr Hummerston said.
On Wednesday Sportsbet was expecting a loss of more $10m after offering odds of $2.80 on Mr Trump and $1.45 for Mr Biden in the lead up to the campaign.
The odds were based on polling data from the US as well as the weight of cash on the candidates.
As counting got underway and the pendulum swung in Mr Trump’s favour, Mr Hummerston feared they were looking at a repeat of the 2016 election, which had Hillary Clinton as the clear frontrunner.
“It’s groundhog day,” Mr Hummerston declared.
“The punters have been extremely bullish on Trump all year long, and at this point in time, it looks like the punters are going to be more accurate than any polling data.”
Mr Hummerston said 92 per cent of the bets on the election had backed a Trump win, and as a result Sportsbet was looking at a loss in excess of $10m.
A Tabcorp spokesman declined to say what it was holding on the election, or the net result either way. He did reveal Tabcorp had taken more bets on the US poll than the AFL or NRL grand finals with Mr Trump attracting 65 per cent of the money.
Before the count, Mr Trump had not been favoured by Tabcorp since late September when he tested positive to COVID-19.
Mr Hummerston said Sportsbet calculated its odds for the election using polling data from the US and the “weight of cash”.
In this instance perhaps, the weight of cash should have sent a clear signal with Sportsbet taking $1m a day in favour of a Trump victory, in the last week of the campaign. “The most surprising thing was the support for Trump given the polling data and hence the odds that we had,” Mr Hummerston said. “You’d rarely see a market where you’d have so much betting activity on the outsider.
Whereas the largest plunge on Mr Biden was a $10,000 bet, Mr Trump had attracted one $100,000 bet, plus another 17 between $10,000 and $60,000.
Tabcorp punters showed a little more confidence in Mr Biden, with one splashing out $130,000 on odds of $1.57 for a Democrat victory, and another stumping up $100,000.
Mr Hummerston said despite the increasing likelihood Mr Trump would return to the White House, Sportsbet would wait until all mail and absentee votes were counted before paying out.
Prior to the 2019 federal election in Australia, Sportsbet paid out on Labor to win beforehand, based on the polls.
“We need to wait till it’s officially called,” he said.
Sportsbet had expected to pay out more than $11m in 2016, when Mr Trump defeated Democrat challenger Hillary Clinton.