Trump Wins Election on Prediction Platforms by a Considerable Margin

You couldn't legally bet on the outcome of the election at our best sports betting sites, but there were other avenues to get money on it.

As hours passed and votes poured in during the 2024 presidential election, online bettors have become increasingly confident of Donald Trump’s return to the White House. The Election Betting Odds , which tracks odds across Polymarket, Kalshi, PredictIt, Smarkets, and Betfair, showed a 98.3% chance of a Trump victory as of 1:30 a.m. ET on Nov. 6, the morning after the election.

Kalshi, the New York-based prediction platform open to US citizens, favored Trump by a 99% to 1% margin, following Harris’ brief lead on the site on Saturday. Its rival site PredictIt also gave Trump a 98% win probability, while brokerages Robinhood and Interactive Brokers priced it the same. Robinhood introduced election contracts last week ahead of the election to “give people a tool to engage in real-time decision-making.”

The international betting site Polymarket, one of the most famous election betting operators, also gave Trump 99.1% implied odds of victory at the same time on Wednesday. London-based sites Betfair and Smarket both favored Trump by 97%.

How does election betting work?

Election betting sites allow users to invest in their predictions by purchasing contracts for their chosen candidate. Users can only buy a “yes” contract for one candidate, either Trump or Harris, which pays $1 per contract if the candidate wins. If the candidate loses, the contract is worth nothing. Each site varies in contract pricing and rules. For instance, Robinhood users can hold up to 5,000 contracts each, while PredictIt caps bets at $850 per user for each election market.

As for when the bets settle, this also differs by platform. Polymarket could pay out as soon as this week, as it pays after NBC News, Fox News, and the Associated Press all call the election in one candidate’s favor. Robinhood users will have to wait a little longer, as the platform settles bets on January 7, the day after Congress certifies results. Meanwhile, Kalshi pays out on Inauguration Day on January 20, 2025. Lastly, PredictIt says it will pay out when “any ambiguity or uncertainty before the market is settled.”

A historic outcome

Various news sites, including AP, Fox, and NBC, have declared Donald Trump as the winner, as he is set to become the 47th president of the United States. Trump was also set to win in all seven battleground states, including Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin.

This result comes despite Harris’ efforts to win over the younger male demographic, which was found to largely favor Trump. Last week, her running mate, Tim Walz, appeared on Twitch with Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, playing Madden NFL 25 to engage younger audiences. Additionally, the AI chatbot ChatGPT predicted Harris as the winner by a 51% margin.

Had Harris won, she would have made history as the first female president of the US. Instead, Trump returns for his second term in the White House, becoming the first US president to serve non-consecutive terms in 120 years.