What are election betting odds? Expert explains why Trump is current favorite

Former President Trump, the Republican presidential nominee, has opened up a sizable advantage in the election betting odds in recent weeks, giving Americans a new way of trying to piece together what might happen come Election Day.

“More than two billion dollars have been bet on the election already,” Maxim Lott, who runs ElectionBettingOdds.com, told Fox News Digital.

The comments come as Lott’s website, which uses data from five different betting sites to display a betting average, shows Trump has a 58.5% chance of winning the presidential election as of Monday.

Lott’s website isn’t the only one tracking the betting odds, with popular sites such as RealClearPolitics, which has become known over the years for tracking polling averages, joining the fray.

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Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump is shown at a campaign rally at the Findlay Toyota Arena on Oct. 13, 2024, in Prescott Valley, Ariz. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci)

Like ElectionBettingOdds.com, the RealClearPolitics betting average shows Trump as the favorite with a 59% chance to win the election as of Monday.

Trump’s chances of winning the election have dramatically risen over the last few weeks, with his Democrat opponent, Vice President Harris, being the betting favorite on RealClearPolitics as recently as Oct. 4. But Trump took the lead the next day and hasn’t looked back, eventually rising to the nearly 20 percentage-point advantage the former president enjoyed on Monday.

For Lott, looking at betting averages gives people a much clearer picture of what the most likely outcome of the election is compared to trying to piece together polls.

“These are really accurate, they’re more accurate than just trying to look at polls or especially more accurate than listening to pundits bloviating,” Lott said.

“[The bettors] look at all sorts of historical data, they look at trends,” he added. “I find the percent more useful than the polls.”

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Democrat presidential candidate Vice President Harris speaks to the media at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee on Oct. 17, 2024. (SAUL LOEB/AFP via Getty Images)

Lott, who previously served as a program executive producer for the Fox Business Network, also noted that people risk their own money to make a bet on an outcome, creating a market that has the ability to “discipline people” who get it wrong.

“If you’re not very smart, or very biased, you’re going to lose your money pretty quickly, and then maybe you won’t bet again next election,” Lott said.

While betting on elections is newer than more well-known gambling pastimes such as sports betting and casino games, Lott said the market has become robust enough to offer election followers a glimpse into what the most likely outcome will be.

“Last cycle we had more than a billion dollars traded. That’s still [not] that much if you compare it to … the stock market or something, but it’s enough that we have a reliable indicator, and that’s what [is] important to us as users who just want to know what’s going to happen,” Lott said.

Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump speaks at a campaign rally, Oct. 19, 2024, at Arnold Palmer Regional Airport in Latrobe, Pa. (AP Photo/Matt Rourke)

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As for Trump’s lead, Lott said it likely reflects an end to the “honeymoon period” Harris enjoyed after being elevated as the Democrat nominee, noting that Trump had risen to around 70% likely to win the election before President Biden dropped his bid for re-election and has bounced back into the lead once again.

“Things have kind of reverted back to the mean where – it is a tough cycle for Democrats with things like inflation and immigration, and so maybe for a couple months people were like, ‘Oh, Harris, this is interesting, this is new, this is refreshing,’ and then it’s kind of sinking in: ‘This is the same administration we didn’t like with Biden,” Lott said.

Get the latest updates from the 2024 campaign trail, exclusive interviews and more at our Fox News Digital election hub.