Pasted my comment from elsewhere here to support the argument.
The way in which most polls are conducted is often biased towards older voters as they’re often phone calls. How many young people are answering phonecalls from unknown numbers? Also the sources pollsters get their numbers from are also often biased as well.
Seriously, polls mean nothing. If you want to know what people actually think, then look at the money. Betting odds everywhere still have trump destroying her. That’s what people actually think.
*That’s what people who’s entire profession is establishing likelihood of outcomes think.
Oddsmakers are often wrong, but over the long term, they’re more often right, it’s the entire basis of how they make money.
Polls are just polls. Oddsmakers literally are putting thier money where their mouth is. If you’re confident they’re wrong, take the bet. They WANT you to.
Edit: after reading the great responses, I think I’m sorely underestimating the volume of bets and how keeping both sides betting against eachother in this case is the strongest factor in the current odds.
If people predominantly bet for one side, the odds have to lower so the house still wins in either case. Basically, there has to be enough taken in on all other options to cover the payout of any winning option.
If there’s no selection bias in betting skill level of the players, then the betting odds should roughly reflect the actual probability. But if one side’s bet has no basis in reality, then the odds can get very skewed.
And in those cases, it’s not the oddsmakers that are wrong, it’s the betters. The house always wins.
In a horse race, punters tend to spread bets across horses with no bias or favouritism - they place the bet because they want to make money, not because they are invested in the outcome.
In a political race, people bet for one team because they are ideologically aligned and want to show support.
If Republicans are much more likely than Democrats to gamble and place bets on their candidate, this creates market pressure and the odds for a Republican win will increase (I.e. get more likely) as a result of that.
As if polls aren’t designed and administered by people who know what they’re doing, and it doesn’t make them right. There never will be a way to accurately predict the future so why try? Vote.
Polls are surveys. They answer the question “what do people say they’re going to do?”
Extrapolating results strictly from polling comes with a pretty large caveat: it assumes people are going to do what they say they’re going to do.
Another large caveat is that there are issues with representation, as the group of people who will actually answer their phone is a pretty serious demographic skew.
Oddsmakers use polling results as a COMPONENT of their determination, but they’re free to aggregate against whatever else they see as relevant, things like history. Or to weigh which states polling is most effective. Or how which day of the week affects voter turnout on a per district level. Or how projected road closures could affect transit and therefore turnout rates.
Anyways, I think the entire point of my initial comment was lost:
If you’re excited about the polling, awesome… BUT DON’T GET COMPLACENT AND STILL GO VOTE. Why? Because the people who actually get paid to project outcomes think it’ll be a Hillary re-run, and if you don’t want that, you can NOT get complacent. You can’t let your friends get complacent. Be the reason the oddsmakers lose money in November.
I think we’re on the same page about what matters. I just don’t really put any stock in any prediction after what happened in 2016.
And yes I have heard the explanations and how actually the polls weren’t as wrong as they seemed at first glance. I just see zero reason to put any stock in them. I’m voting either way and I’ll encourage others to.
I’d love it if everyone at least was skeptical of polls because that’s a stance you can’t go wrong with.
I think the availability of polling is a major reason why people don’t bother to vote. If they’re reasonably sure their person will win, they’re less likely to bother. Or, if it looks like it’s going to be a blowout and they don’t think one vote will matter, same thing.
Voting day should be a federal holiday, there should be a tax incentive to vote like in Australia, and polling reporting should be delayed by 1 month.
Betting odds are influenced by other factors beyond the underlying probability, including behaviour of betters and where bets are placed.
Take horse racing. If a horse was given a 40% chance to win but lots of people start piling money on that horse rather than any others, this creates unbalanced risk for the bookmaker as bets on one outcome need to be balanced by bets on another to ensure the bookmaker makes money.
The bookmaker will respond to this by adjusting the odds of the popular horse upward to a higher probability, e.g. 60% And that can happen purely through market behaviour, even though nothing about the horse or the track or the race itself has changed!
So it could be that Trump is the genuine statistical favourite. But it could also be that Republicans are just more likely to gamble and place bets on their candidate than Democrats are.
Then it’s easy free money, go take it from the degenerates. Nearly all sites are offering double your money if she wins. The rates are usually dynamic, so get it while it’s hot, it may not last at such a discount once the clever betters see this steal.
On lots of these sites, Harris has been paying half of Biden for the last 3 weeks, well before Biden even announced his retirement. Maybe the betters knew something others didn’t, maybe it was just chance…
There’s some misunderstanding of definitions going on here. A degenerate gambler is someone who repeatedly makes bad bets. According to you, you would be betting against the people making bad bets. This is what nearly all successful business is, betting against people you think you are smarter than. The real issue here is that you don’t actually believe your own comment. That’s fine, I don’t believe it either.
Yeah, don’t go to the places people are actually willing to risk their money. Go to the people with agendas and no evidence of who they even asked. Good one.
And yet 3 weeks ago, a bet on Harris would have paid half as much as a bet on biden. That was well before even biden announced he was stopping. People’s money says something.
Well, it isn’t fool proof, but somehow, most major prediction markets were saying a harris win was twice as likely as a biden win almost a month ago. If you were asked a month ago who was more likely to win in 2024, would you have said biden or Harris? Probably biden, right? So maybe there is something to them. It’s just an interesting thing. You don’t have to think they are 100%, the world is never that absolute.
With a straight face, you say if someone bets on something it’s inherently more true. Betting. An entire industry powered by the mathematical fact that most betters lose. enjoy Putin’s smegma
Prediction markets. Google it. Check out their successes. Nothing is 100%. The prediction markets have been saying for almost a month th that Harris as president is twice as likely as Biden. Think about it.
Yeah this is always the dumbest argument in a thread filled with dumb arguments. As if a bunch of degenerate gamblers have some mystical vision on the issue.
Prediction markets like we are talking about only change based on the bets that other betters have made. Pure prediction markets don’t even take a hosting cut, but most aren’t pure, so a percent or so goes to the inferstructure costs. It isn’t like a traditional Vegas sports book when the house picks horrible odds that you can take or leave where they know they will win.
Since we have a body of results-driven data to refer to in this case:
How often has Vegas correctly called election results 3 months out?
I’m not passing judgement on placing stock in betting odds (nor am I willing to give them any credit) unless I see some data that suggests they’re getting it right a vast majority of the time.
I was referring to prediction markets, not betting against the house in Vegas. With prediction markets, the odds are directly dependent on the bets other people make. They have a phenomenal record, and there have been lots of studies done on them. The most relevant recent one is that nearly every market has had Harris as being twice as likely as winning for nearly the last month. Most people just found out a few days ago that biden was dropping out. Somehow, this was already shown in pretty much every prediction market. When peoples money is on the line, in a large group, they tend to be quite good at predicting things.
A reminder, folks: That a mathematical justification must exist for polls to stay in business. They work off of weight ratios, and if one thing is more likely according to a calculation, they weight that and ratio the bets to be less profitable for those who bet on it.
Polls attempt to weight real-world data and adjust using, you guessed it, mathematical justification. In general, counting the total number of people in a room is more precise than estimating a percentage and working in some flavor text.
Fuck polls. Go vote!
Yes, please.
Fuck votes, go poll! Actually, strike that, reverse it.
bop it, twist it
buy it use it break it fix it
Pasted my comment from elsewhere here to support the argument.
The way in which most polls are conducted is often biased towards older voters as they’re often phone calls. How many young people are answering phonecalls from unknown numbers? Also the sources pollsters get their numbers from are also often biased as well.
Here’s a report from Pew Research who make their money from polls, so this is the rosiest of takes on it https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2022/09/21/does-public-opinion-polling-about-issues-still-work/
Here’s a take from the Times and what they’re trying to do about it. I’ve pasted the archive.is link https://archive.is/sQ5Vi
And here’s a report from journalists that doesn’t profit from polling https://theweek.com/politics/2024-election-polls-accuracy
Seriously, polls mean nothing. If you want to know what people actually think, then look at the money. Betting odds everywhere still have trump destroying her. That’s what people actually think.
*that’s what people with money that bet think
**that’s what people with gambling addiction think
*That’s what people who’s entire profession is establishing likelihood of outcomes think.
Oddsmakers are often wrong, but over the long term, they’re more often right, it’s the entire basis of how they make money.
Polls are just polls. Oddsmakers literally are putting thier money where their mouth is. If you’re confident they’re wrong, take the bet. They WANT you to.
Edit: after reading the great responses, I think I’m sorely underestimating the volume of bets and how keeping both sides betting against eachother in this case is the strongest factor in the current odds.
I don’t think that’s how that works.
If people predominantly bet for one side, the odds have to lower so the house still wins in either case. Basically, there has to be enough taken in on all other options to cover the payout of any winning option.
If there’s no selection bias in betting skill level of the players, then the betting odds should roughly reflect the actual probability. But if one side’s bet has no basis in reality, then the odds can get very skewed.
And in those cases, it’s not the oddsmakers that are wrong, it’s the betters. The house always wins.
Exactly.
In a horse race, punters tend to spread bets across horses with no bias or favouritism - they place the bet because they want to make money, not because they are invested in the outcome.
In a political race, people bet for one team because they are ideologically aligned and want to show support.
If Republicans are much more likely than Democrats to gamble and place bets on their candidate, this creates market pressure and the odds for a Republican win will increase (I.e. get more likely) as a result of that.
How long have you been trading?
As if polls aren’t designed and administered by people who know what they’re doing, and it doesn’t make them right. There never will be a way to accurately predict the future so why try? Vote.
Polls are surveys. They answer the question “what do people say they’re going to do?”
Extrapolating results strictly from polling comes with a pretty large caveat: it assumes people are going to do what they say they’re going to do.
Another large caveat is that there are issues with representation, as the group of people who will actually answer their phone is a pretty serious demographic skew.
Oddsmakers use polling results as a COMPONENT of their determination, but they’re free to aggregate against whatever else they see as relevant, things like history. Or to weigh which states polling is most effective. Or how which day of the week affects voter turnout on a per district level. Or how projected road closures could affect transit and therefore turnout rates.
Anyways, I think the entire point of my initial comment was lost:
If you’re excited about the polling, awesome… BUT DON’T GET COMPLACENT AND STILL GO VOTE. Why? Because the people who actually get paid to project outcomes think it’ll be a Hillary re-run, and if you don’t want that, you can NOT get complacent. You can’t let your friends get complacent. Be the reason the oddsmakers lose money in November.
I think we’re on the same page about what matters. I just don’t really put any stock in any prediction after what happened in 2016.
And yes I have heard the explanations and how actually the polls weren’t as wrong as they seemed at first glance. I just see zero reason to put any stock in them. I’m voting either way and I’ll encourage others to.
I’d love it if everyone at least was skeptical of polls because that’s a stance you can’t go wrong with.
I think the availability of polling is a major reason why people don’t bother to vote. If they’re reasonably sure their person will win, they’re less likely to bother. Or, if it looks like it’s going to be a blowout and they don’t think one vote will matter, same thing.
Voting day should be a federal holiday, there should be a tax incentive to vote like in Australia, and polling reporting should be delayed by 1 month.
I agree with all of this completely! Maybe someday we can catch up to other countries…
What were the odds Biden won in 2020? Did these same “expert oddsmakers” favor him or Trump?
Check the quality of your authority figures before you go all in on arguing they are right.
Betting odds are influenced by other factors beyond the underlying probability, including behaviour of betters and where bets are placed.
Take horse racing. If a horse was given a 40% chance to win but lots of people start piling money on that horse rather than any others, this creates unbalanced risk for the bookmaker as bets on one outcome need to be balanced by bets on another to ensure the bookmaker makes money.
The bookmaker will respond to this by adjusting the odds of the popular horse upward to a higher probability, e.g. 60% And that can happen purely through market behaviour, even though nothing about the horse or the track or the race itself has changed!
So it could be that Trump is the genuine statistical favourite. But it could also be that Republicans are just more likely to gamble and place bets on their candidate than Democrats are.
Then it’s easy free money, go take it from the degenerates. Nearly all sites are offering double your money if she wins. The rates are usually dynamic, so get it while it’s hot, it may not last at such a discount once the clever betters see this steal.
On lots of these sites, Harris has been paying half of Biden for the last 3 weeks, well before Biden even announced his retirement. Maybe the betters knew something others didn’t, maybe it was just chance…
I would, except I am not a degenerate gambler
There’s some misunderstanding of definitions going on here. A degenerate gambler is someone who repeatedly makes bad bets. According to you, you would be betting against the people making bad bets. This is what nearly all successful business is, betting against people you think you are smarter than. The real issue here is that you don’t actually believe your own comment. That’s fine, I don’t believe it either.
Wtf… No. Don’t replace polls with a weird poll proxy. Ignore all that shit and vote.
Yeah, don’t go to the places people are actually willing to risk their money. Go to the people with agendas and no evidence of who they even asked. Good one.
Actually fuck both. Your idea is far worse than even polls though
And yet 3 weeks ago, a bet on Harris would have paid half as much as a bet on biden. That was well before even biden announced he was stopping. People’s money says something.
Holy shit am I really reading an argument about using bets to forecast an election?
The part of my brain doing math just spontaneously combusted.
Huh. That must have been the part that could apply base logic.
Well, it isn’t fool proof, but somehow, most major prediction markets were saying a harris win was twice as likely as a biden win almost a month ago. If you were asked a month ago who was more likely to win in 2024, would you have said biden or Harris? Probably biden, right? So maybe there is something to them. It’s just an interesting thing. You don’t have to think they are 100%, the world is never that absolute.
With a straight face, you say if someone bets on something it’s inherently more true. Betting. An entire industry powered by the mathematical fact that most betters lose. enjoy Putin’s smegma
Prediction markets. Google it. Check out their successes. Nothing is 100%. The prediction markets have been saying for almost a month th that Harris as president is twice as likely as Biden. Think about it.
The concept of betting depends on the fact that most betters lose. So yeah I’d say that’s a lot worse than “100%”
Ah yes, because the wealthy gambling their wealth for the adrenaline high has never happened in the history of ever.
Ever heard of a card game called chemin de fer?
This has nothing to do with the wealthy. It’s an interesting observation that the markets called biden dropping out a month before biden announced it.
You’re right, but I noticed that the odds have been shifting in Kamala’s favour. She was around +250 just a few days ago, and now she’s about +160.
Trump is still the favourite to win (-188), but a couple debates might turn that around.
Yeah, you’re absolutely right, Kamala has been rapidly catching up. It’s very exciting.
Do you think the polls don’t factor into the betting odds?
Yeah this is always the dumbest argument in a thread filled with dumb arguments. As if a bunch of degenerate gamblers have some mystical vision on the issue.
Prediction markets like we are talking about only change based on the bets that other betters have made. Pure prediction markets don’t even take a hosting cut, but most aren’t pure, so a percent or so goes to the inferstructure costs. It isn’t like a traditional Vegas sports book when the house picks horrible odds that you can take or leave where they know they will win.
Honest question:
Since we have a body of results-driven data to refer to in this case:
How often has Vegas correctly called election results 3 months out?
I’m not passing judgement on placing stock in betting odds (nor am I willing to give them any credit) unless I see some data that suggests they’re getting it right a vast majority of the time.
I was referring to prediction markets, not betting against the house in Vegas. With prediction markets, the odds are directly dependent on the bets other people make. They have a phenomenal record, and there have been lots of studies done on them. The most relevant recent one is that nearly every market has had Harris as being twice as likely as winning for nearly the last month. Most people just found out a few days ago that biden was dropping out. Somehow, this was already shown in pretty much every prediction market. When peoples money is on the line, in a large group, they tend to be quite good at predicting things.
It tells you what the rich and corporate interests think, and badly.
A reminder, folks: That a mathematical justification must exist for polls to stay in business. They work off of weight ratios, and if one thing is more likely according to a calculation, they weight that and ratio the bets to be less profitable for those who bet on it.
Polls attempt to weight real-world data and adjust using, you guessed it, mathematical justification. In general, counting the total number of people in a room is more precise than estimating a percentage and working in some flavor text.
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