President Joe Biden will get more votes in November than Donald Trump, but he'll nevertheless lose the election, according to oddsmakers at a site where people from around the world make and lose money based on their predictive powers.
BetUS, which boasts more than a million customers worldwide, told Newsweek that based on the action at its site, it is giving Trump a 63.64 percent chance of winning the 270 or more Electoral College votes needed to become the next president. It's also giving Biden a 73.33 percent chance of winning the popular vote.
If the oddsmakers are correct, Trump would repeat the feat he accomplished in 2016 when he beat Hillary Clinton for the presidency despite losing the popular vote by 2.1 percent, courtesy of large victories notched by Clinton in states like New York, Illinois and California.
There have been four other instances of presidents winning the Electoral College while losing the popular vote: John Quincy Adams beating Andrew Jackson in 1824; Rutherford B. Hayes beating Samuel J. Tilden in 1876; Benjamin Harrison beating Grover Cleveland in 1888; and George W. Bush defeating Al Gore in 2000.
Beyond BetUs, CoinDesk reported on Monday that Polymarket, which bills itself as the world's largest prediction market, is also predicting a Trump presidential victory even while losing the popular vote. Polymarket's oddsmakers on Monday gave Biden a 56 percent shot at winning the popular vote and Trump a 52 percent chance at winning the presidency.
Oddsmakers, though, are so far at odds with pollsters. In the latest averages from RealClearPolling, Trump is beating Biden in the popular vote, 42.6 percent to 40.4 percent while Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is at 6.7 percent and Cornell West and Jill Stein are at 1.4 percent and 1.1 percent, respectively.
BetUS is also taking wagers on Thursday's first presidential debate between Trump and Biden. It will be hosted by CNN, with Dana Bash and Jake Tapper serving as moderators.
Perhaps most significantly, whether or not it will even take place. As of Monday, when betting in that category closed, oddsmakers gave it a 30.3 percent chance that the debate would be either canceled or postponed.
As of Wednesday afternoon, CNN's head-to-head debate between Biden and Trump is scheduled to proceed as planned at a TV studio in Atlanta, Georgia, without an audience. Even so, bettors can wager that there will be "a protest or interruption from the audience," and their odds of +350 imply that there is a 22.22 percent chance of that somehow occurring.
"We are expecting June 27 to be the most wagered-on presidential debate in history," BetUS director of public relations Tim Williams said, without revealing specific numbers.
Another bet highlighted by Williams is whether or not either candidate will mention X (referring to it by its former name, Twitter, also counts). Based on the odds, there's about 41.67 percent chance that either Biden or Trump will mention the Elon Musk-owned platform.
Mentioning Hunter Biden, the president's son whose laptop computer was a topic four years ago, is also a bet with an implied probability of it being discussed is 80 percent.
In October 2020, Trump referenced Hunter Biden's laptop, which Joe Biden dismissed by citing a memo from "50 former national intelligence folks who said that what he's accusing me of is a Russian plant."
The laptop, though, was real. The U.S. Department of Justice used some of its contents to make its case that Hunter Biden illegally possessed a handgun. The president's son was found guilty of three firearm-related felonies on June 11.
Even more certain than a mention of the laptop, according to BetUS, is that the January 6, 2021, riot at the Capitol will be discussed during Thursday's debate, with an implied probability of 87.5 percent.
Biden has referred to the event as an insurrection while Trump has likened it to protests for a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas in Gaza and the Black Lives Matter protests four years ago.
A second debate is scheduled for September 10 and will be hosted by ABC News.
Uncommon Knowledge
Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.
Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.
About the writer
Paul Bond has been a journalist for three decades. Prior to joining Newsweek he was with The Hollywood Reporter. He ... Read more
