Betting on elections!
Brilliant.
U.S. Reps. Andrea Salinas (D-Oregon) and the reliably absurd Jamie Raskin, (D-Md), introduced a bill in Congress last month mirroring a bill introduced by Sen. Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.), earlier in 2024, to prohibit election wagering. It’s called the “Ban Gambling on Elections Act.”
“Betting on elections degrades them from an investment in leadership to a profit-maximizing game,” Merkley said in a statement. “In addition, this practice is corrupt since those betting can influence the outcome by funding late-cycle smear campaigns. It’s like betting on a baseball game when you control the umpire. It’s a great step forward to have House leaders like Rep. Raskin and Congresswoman Salinas take on this fight.”
No, it’s moronic. One can hardly get addicted to election wagering: first, the pay-offs aren’t very big, and second, big elections only come along every two years. Unlike any other form of gambling, the election wagering actually conveys useful information: due to the “wisdom of crowds,” the betting tends to be more accurate in predicting outcomes than polls. The idea that anyone would spend money to fund a “smear campaign” to win an election bet is so bonkers it doesn’t even warrant a rebuttal.
In contrast, banning state lotteries would do some real good; finding ways to dial back casino gambling and online gambling would also save families and marriages from ruin. Slot machines are licenses to steal. So, of course, these three Democrats choose the least harmful and sinister of all gambling platforms to grandstand over. I can’t figure out what motivated this nonsense. Are the Democrats mad at the betting sites because they predicted Trump’s win?
I’m betting their bill rolls snake-eyes.
Ethics Alarms 
I’ve enjoyed the irony that states with lotteries also promote their state funded gambling addiction service hotlines. The government certainly is good at causing problems so they can also be the “solution” for the problems.
I think it’s more to the point that the betting sites reflected reality rather than Regime talking points, and have the credibility now that pollsters used to have.
This isn’t about vice, it’s about thought control.
I agree. It’s about restricting a form of “misinformation”
I don’t know if ironic or not, but it’s certainly tragic that gambling, one of our biggest cultural deceivers – with its slots and cards and lotteries and all the promises of “you can win!” and “strike it rich!” – is more truthful than both pollsters and Congress.
Wow.
Are the Democrats mad at the betting sites because they predicted Trump’s win?
Yep. I’m going to assume these bills have been drafted by lawyers hired by pollsters and introduced by hack Dem pols at the pollsters’ behest. Who will need to hire pollsters when you can just look at the betting odds for free? Election betting data is an existential threat (sound familiar?) to pollsters and their income. The entire industry could simply dry up and blow away. And I’m sure the hack pols who hire pollsters get lots of kickbacks from the pollsters.
“Are the Democrats mad at the betting sites because they predicted Trump’s win?”
Pretty much, yeah. They have decided to treat it as election interference because the news media picked up on the odds and advertised them and the entire country decided their votes based on those odds…or something.
Because we’d be hearing crickets right now if VP Harris had been the odds-on favorite.
A salient point, OB…one I had not considered.
Now the networks, the leagues and the players unions are in joint ventures with the gambling houses and are touting odds during sports broadcasts, it’s finally clear sports, particularly professional sports, are nothing more than gambling operations. Here I thought guys on TV picking favorites for particular games were just speaking to the fans of the respective teams. Nope. They were giving advice on how to bet the game. Is there anything that matches gambling in terms of having no benefit for society?
Gambling should be severely restricted – and that’s coming from me who used to be a full on libertarian but am shifting away from that.
These *democrats* are only picking election betting because they think it contributed to their loss this go around. They very likely would never have bothered with this if their side won.
Ya think? I think it is unusually transparent sour grapes and pettiness, a loser’s tantrum.
Especially since I seem to vaguely recall that democrat operatives did what they could to manipulate the betting markets and reporting on the betting markets to see what they could do to use whatever influence it had to swing things a few fractions of a percentage point their direction. So they’re mad that not only did the betting markets not swing their way, but that they couldn’t control them at all. So if the democrats can’t control something, they’d better end it.
Fair analysis.
Elliot Rodger had thought he can win the jackpot simply by wishing really hard.
I may or may not get around to writing about the larger issues here, but for now I’ll simply confess that I tried for 15 minutes to figure out what was going on with the chart you posted at the top of the page… before noticing that it was from the 2020 (not 2024) election. I need a nap.