Online bettors in other parts of the world are accustomed to betting on a lot more than sports.
For example, when Prince William married Kate Middleton in 2011, UK punters bets on the color Queen Elizabeth would wear to the wedding (the answer: yellow). More recently, they bet on the name of the latest baby (predicting Arthur and Alexander, but not Archie).
These days, Brits are betting on the following:
- Will the Pope quit? (Heavens, no)
- Will Donald Trump win the 2019 Nobel Peace Prize? (Hell, no)
- How many tweets will Trump post from June 26 to July 3? (119)
Of course, the Big Daddy, the Indy 500, the Super Bowl of current events is the 2020 U.S. presidential election, in which the incumbent faces an army of wannabes on the Democrat side.
According to New Zealand-based betting site PredictIt.com, Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren and former Obama VP Joe Biden are neck-and-neck in the race. To win they’ll have to crawl over the bodies of all the others—Cory Booker, Kamala Harris, Pete Buttigieg, Julian Castro—who are just as convinced they’ll soon need a change-of-address form.
Wild card choices include Kanye West, Mark Cuban and Dwayne Johnson (if those are the choices, it’s The Rock for me!). Oprah Winfrey is also on the list, but seriously, do they think Americans are going to put a TV star in the White House? Oh, wait…
Anyway, here’s how PredictIt works:
- Choose an issue and predict the outcome
- Buy shares for or against the outcome of your choice
- Trade your shares, selling high if your prediction is right
BTW, betting fans, though the firm is based Down Under, it’s completely legal for U.S. players.
Needless to add, this is not a digital crystal ball and bettors have been wrong in the past. In the 2016 election, participants chose Hillary Clinton as the likely winner, and everybody knows how that turned out.
