Trump Says Even Bookies’ Predicted His Predominant Victory

Article ByStan Fox

December 14, 2020

Spread the Word:

Posted in: US Sports Betting News

President Trump has renewed his complaint about the election, wondering how he could lose after bookies gave him a 97% favorite.

While taking on Twitter last Wednesday, the outgoing president claimed the odds were with him in a big way on November 3. He wondered that he was winning by the election night, as per the predictions of the so-called “bookies”. He tweeted: “At 10:00 PM on Election Evening, we were at 97% win with the so-called “bookies”.

Another Unsubstantiated Claim?

However, the latest tweet has not clarified what the Republican president means by “so-called bookies”. Since the unofficial results were announced, Trump has been making unsubstantiated claims meant to make the electoral process suspicious.

Besides, although almost half the US states have legalized the industry, betting on politics in the country is illegal. Yet, the 2020 US Presidential Election turned out to be the world’s biggest political event, particularly for European sportsbooks and the unregulated offshore books.

Interestingly, none of those sportsbooks had the incumbent president as that big of a favorite, even when the odds shifted in his favor late that night and into the next morning.

What Was Trump’s Probability on Election Night?

On election night, Trump’s implied probability was 74.1% at the UK-based sportsbook and betting exchange Betfair. Roughly around the same time, another British sportsbook, Smarkets, listed the complaining president’s odds implying a 63.7% chance of returning to the White House for another four years. 

In the US overnight hours, neither 888Sport nor Ladbrokes had odds on the US president that implied even a 75% probability of winning. However, the odds in the race for the White House began to swing back in favor of the Democratic candidate on Wednesday morning.

Implied Probability, Just a Calculated Guess!

Understandably, merely because odds translate to an implied probability does not necessarily mean it will eventually happen. Implied probability is a metric that helps determine gambler whether or not a bet has a value at those odds.

Perhaps the president referred to win probability, which in this particular case evaluates a presidential candidate’s chances of winning based at a particular point in the process. The metric uses past performances of teams and individuals in the same situation to gauge the probability. Still, the metric is not meant to guarantee success. For instance, Trump’s most recent claim of having a 97% odds of winning still means there’s a 3% chance of losing.

It is more like a gaming competition in which a better team has greater chances of winnings, and thus they are listed as a favorite in the books. The most recent example is the Atlanta Falcons that had over 99% probability of winning against the Dallas Cowboys, but the Falcons lost both games.

What Does Trump’s Tweet Suggest?

Ever since the results suggested Biden’s victory, Trump has been making unsubstantiated claims that he is the actual winner. Despite the fact that his Democratic rival received 7 million more votes, Trump has been challenging the election results for more than a month.

After back-to-back setbacks on the legal side, the latest tweet suggests the outgoing president’s desperation to woo his supporters with emotions that his legal team could not prove after 50 different legal efforts to overturn the election results.

A few hours after Trump’s tweet, West Virginia became the final state to certify its election results. It is expected the Joe Biden will secure 306 of the 538 Electoral College votes, confirming his election as the next president of the United States.