Gamblers have long been known to be accurate predictors of presidential elections.
So who are bookies such as Hot Horse Herbie and Vinnie the Pipe betting on this year? They are all betting on Obama.
As presidential betting is forbidden in the USA, international gambling websites such as Intratrade of Ireland and Ladbrokes and William Hill of the U.K. are running hot tonight.
“Carl Wolfenden, exchange operations manager for Intrade, tells ABC News it’s a common misconception U.S. citizens can’t bet on presidential elections.
Nearly three quarters of Intrade’s presidential bets (73 percent) come from the U.S., he says. Though credit card companies block payments from U.S. gamblers, they can pay by check. “Americans can do it,” he explains. “It’s just inconvenient.”
Intrade has taken bets on the past two U.S. presidential elections. How accurate have gamblers been? “They’ve been pretty good,” says Wolfenden. In ’04 they bet on Bush and correctly called results in all 50 states. In ’08 they predicted Obama and got 48 states right (they bet wrong on Missouri and Indiana).
This year, bettors at all three online book makers favor Obama. Ladbrokes gives him odds of 1-to-5 (versus Romney’s 7-to-2 ; William Hill scores them, respectively, 2-to-9 and 16-to-5.” SOURCE
One of the biggest questions this election is Ohio and Intrade gives Obama the state with a 71.8% probability to Romney’s 30.3%.
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