Who won the debate? Kamala Harris is leading Donald Trump, say the prediction markets

After the Sept. 10 debate, Vice President Harris’ stock was placed at 56 cents a share compared with former President Donald Trump’s 47 cents — according to PredictIt, an online prediction market based in New Zealand. Although they were neck and neck before the debate, Trump has trailed Harris for some time on the platform, steadily declining, while Harris has made gains since July 31.

Americans have a long and contested history of betting on non-presidential events. And interest in gambling has grown more or less steadily over the past decade, from participation rates of 39 percent in 2009 to 49 percent last year, according to the American Gaming Association. Recently, sports betting has taken off especially among the younger generations.

While prediction markets like PredictIt have been around for a while, they have only recently started to grow in popularity. “It’s kind of a breakout year for the prediction markets,” said Harry Crane, a statistics professor at Rutgers University. wealth.

On the crypto side of the internet, Trump usually does better. But barking about dogs didn’t seem to do the candidate any favors. That is, at least, if you look at Polymarket, a cryptocurrency-based prediction market.

An hour before the debate, Harris was at 46% and Trump at 52%, according to PolyMarket. After their performances, Harris pulled ahead of Trump, buoyed by celebrity endorsement Taylor Swift, to 49.1 versus 48.7 cents per share as of 11:30 a.m., it reports. Axios. Of course, prediction markets are a fickle beast. Although Trump has a smaller lead than he once had, he still leads Harris as of Wednesday afternoon with 50 percent, compared to the vice president’s 49 percent.

Election Betting Odds, a site that collects data from prediction markets including PredictIt and Polymarket, as well as UK-based Betfair and Smarkets, has Harris slightly ahead at 51.0% compared to 47.7% of to Trump on Wednesday afternoon. And when it comes to the stock market itself, Trump’s decline was reflected in shares of his media companies that sank.

At least one thing is clear, according to Rutgers’ Crane: Prediction markets are a good sign of things to come.

“If you’re looking for a single piece of information to indicate what’s going to happen in an election, the markets tend to be the best piece of information available,” he said. wealth. “The poll asks you who you’re going to vote for… nobody cares who you’re going to vote for. What people care about is who will win,” he says.