Yes, you can blame Canada for this one, har har har.
That’s because, weirdly enough, one source of insight into the public's opinion of the U.S. presidential election may be legal sportsbooks in Ontario, Canada’s most populous province.
Unlike in the United States, election betting in Ontario is legal and widely offered at regulated sports betting sites such as DraftKings and FanDuel.
At those sportsbooks, odds for the 2024 U.S. election have been on the move of late as questions about President Joe Biden’s fitness have been thrown around following last week’s relatively lackluster debate performance by the incumbent.
DraftKings, for instance, reported before the June 27 debate between Biden and former president Donald Trump that Trump's odds of winning the November election sat at -155 and Biden's at +160. Vice President Kamala Harris was priced at +4,000 to presumably replace Biden atop the Democratic ticket and win the election herself.
But, as of Friday morning, DraftKings' Ontario site priced the Republican Trump at -175 to win the presidential election, Harris at +400, and Biden was out to +600. Odds for the Republican Party in general to win shortened a touch as well, to -175 from -155 pre-debate, matching those of their presumptive candidate. Democratic odds, meanwhile, had shifted to +135 from +120.
Numbers DraftKings provided to Covers at around noon on Friday showed Trump is also attracting most of the action thus far at DK, with 67% of tickets and 65% of handle on him to win in that market. Biden accounted for 11% of bets and 19% of handle. Harris was responsible for just 1% of bets and wagering; California Gov. Gavin Newsom, at then-odds of +1,000, was the third-most popular play with 6% of bets and 5% of handle.
So, do Ontarians actually know something about what’s going to happen south of the border? Or are they just basing their bets on recent news? My hunch is it’s more the latter, that election bettors are trying to read the tea leaves and make a quick buck doing so.
I'm not sure I can recall anything like today's Toronto Blue Jays-Shohei Ohtani insanity, and I think that craziness was driven, at least in part, by sports betting.
— Geoff Zochodne (@GeoffZochodne) December 9, 2023
Take a look at these Ohtani-to-Toronto odds via @NorthStarBet:https://t.co/caK395DAuc pic.twitter.com/LMPR9TpvvT
I'm reminded of the frenzy of wagering in Ontario about where two-way baseball star Shohei Ohtani would wind up this past offseason. In that instance, Ohtani's odds to go to the Ontario-based Toronto Blue Jays began to shorten in tandem with reporting, speculation, and social media tittle-tattle about Shohei's next stop.
The Ohtani-mania was so severe that his odds to go to Toronto cratered at one Ontario-regulated sportsbook from +3,000 in November to even money by Dec. 8. The shortening of the odds seemed to reinforce the narrative circulating online that there was a good chance Shohei was heading north. MLB Network’s Jon Morosi even reported that Ohtani was “en route” to Toronto at one point, fanning the flames further.
But Ohtani wasn’t heading to Toronto. He wasn’t even leaving the city he already played in, merely moving from the Los Angeles Angels to the Los Angeles Dodgers. Ontario bettors who smashed Ohtani at steadily shrinking odds didn’t know anything, they just knew what they had heard, read, and seen, including at sportsbooks. And they were wrong.
Poll positioning
Back to Biden then. Do Ontario bettors know ball — and the innermost thoughts of the most powerful politician in the world — or do they just have a hunch?
One difference between Ohtani-mania and the odds movement around the U.S. presidential election is public opinion. Voters are being polled about their feelings about Biden and the race, which could have some bearing on what Biden ultimately does.
But polls reflect what the oddsboards at Ontario sports betting sites are showing right now: weakening support for the incumbent. For example, a recent poll from the New York Times and Siena College found that 74% of voters surveyed viewed Biden as too old for the presidency, an increase of five percentage points since the debate.
The limited avenues for legal wagering on the presidential election in the U.S. suggest Harris is in line to replace Biden and secure the Democratic nomination. On PredictIt, contracts for Harris to be the Democratic nominee (the Democratic National Convention, where the candidate is formally chosen, is not until Aug. 19 in Chicago) were trading at 47 cents each on Friday, up four cents from the previous day. Biden's contracts for the same market were trading at 35 cents, down five cents from Thursday.
Meanwhile, as of around noon on Friday, bet365 in Ontario was pricing Harris at even money to claim the Democratic candidacy, and Biden at +200. The veep and POTUS had flipped places on the oddsboard, suggesting bettors believe Harris is more likely to carry the Democratic banner into the November election.
Are Ontarians right? We’ll see. If so, maybe the U.S.-based pundits will cite odds at DraftKings and FanDuel in the province come the 2028 election cycle.
