*** Official Political Wagering Thread ***

[PLOL]

Created this thread for people to post bets they're making on the election. I'll post my trades here and post stuff related to election betting so I'm not cluttering the politics thread.

I now have a little over $40k wagered on this election and am pretty close to maxed out. It's the largest wager I've ever made on a single event (second largest was betting Obama in the 2012 election). These prices represent a truly once in a decade betting opportunity. Some of this was money that I ran up during the primaries betting on Biden as a dog, and some of it is new money I deposited since then. In general I'm a "buy and wait until expiration" kinda guy. I'm not going to sell Minnesota for 76 cents just because I bought at 62. There's still 24 cents on the table and shares are very undervalued. I'm also not hedging very much this year, there's just too much value on the other side.

Quick primer on how PredictIt works if you're not familiar:

 

A contract will trade between 1 and 99 cents. This correlates to the odds that traders are giving to a particular event. If it happens, it resolves to $1. If it doesn't happen it resoles to $0. Let's say Biden is trading at 65 cents to win the election. So you can buy "YES" shares for 65 cents. That means there's somebody on the other side buying "NO" shares for 35 cents. Ok, now $1 is locked up. If Biden wins, the holder of YES shares gets the $1. If Biden does't win, the holder of the NO shares gets the $1. Simple enough.

Rule #1 of PredictIt: Stop buying YES shares. You can almost always buy NO shares of the other guy for cheaper and it's the same exact thing. For instance, right now Biden is trading at 66 cents and Trump is trading at 39 cents. Because people seem to put less than 5 minutes into researching how the site works, Biden betters tend to just buy Biden for 66 cents and Trump betters tend to buy Trump for 39 cents. Both of these people are making mistakes. If you want to bet on Trump you should buy "NO" Biden shares for 34 cents. If you want to bet on Biden you should buy "NO" Trump shares for 61 cents. In both cases you're saving 5 cents to get the same exact thing (actually slightly better because you get the field as well in case Biden/Trump die or drop out). There's an $850 cap, so if you bought $850 worth of NO shares, then you can go and start buying $850 worth of YES shares if you think its a good value. But always max out your NO shares when it's cheaper to do so (which it almost always is).

Furthermore, stop just putting in your bids at whatever the ask is. Look at the order book and then move your cursor over and lower your bid by a penny or whatever it is and then place your order. The market is going to wiggle around a little, stop overpaying for no reason. The exceptions are if it looks like the price is about to move up. If you've bought stocks before, this is like putting in a limit order instead of doing a market order.


I'll also quickly explain how buying "NO" shares of multiple people in a linked market works since it seems to confuse the hell out of people at first. I had to explain this to OSA about five times before he understood. Also, the numbers are going to be slightly off because of rake. I'm going to ignore rake for purposes of this example because it'll just confuse newbies more.
Candidate A is trading at 65 cents
Candidate B is trading at 30 cents
Candidate C is trading at 10 cents

You want to buy candidate A, so what should you do? Don't buy candidate A for 65 cents like a moop. Buy "NO" shares of candidate B. This will cost you 70 cents. Now go buy "NO" shares of candidate C. What happens when you buy the NO shares of candidate C? You might expect 90 more cents to be locked up, but actually that's not what happens because the market is linked. What happens in you get 10 cents released to you. So now you have 60 cents locked up and you have a NO share of B and a NO share of C. This means if B OR C wins, you will lose your 60 cents. You're essentially creating a parlay. That's why you'll see me buying NO shares of a guy who's trading for a penny. Even though the guy buying is getting 99 to 1, I'm not actually putting up 99 cents to his one penny. I'm actually receiving a penny for every NO share I buy.

Now on to a rundown of my wagers with a plop voting guide commentary.

I'll start with the ones I bet with my sportsbook. I have a $300 max bet on there, hence the numbers. Obviously I can't trade in and out of these, which I'm fine with. I'm happy with the price I got on everything. And yes I got Trump to not be reelected at +175. That was made during the primaries. These are done on credit so I didn't have to tie money up for it. The state bets were made several weeks ago, before the president got the Rona. No idea who will win Texas or Ohio, but I'm happy to bet it at +180 and +325.

 

General Election:
I have a private bet that was made somewhat recently where I bet on Biden to win the electoral college. It's my $16,775 to win $9,500. I also have a private bet with one of PFA's oldest members (no, not splitthis), my $1k to win $500. Below are my predictit wagers on it. Yes I bought Biden at an average of 34 cents. I actually bought some shares for 5 cents (!) in February, but unfortunately not that many. I had money tied up in other markets at the time and I didn't have a ton of money on the site then.

 

Popular Vote:
I still have some trading left to do in this market. Not exactly sure where I'll end up, but here's where I am now. Some of these shares are stale and some were bought more recently. If you're confused by the last screenshot, look at the "risk" column. That will be my net profit (after rake) if that contract resolves to yes. So I'm profiting if it's Dems by 6-9% or Dems by 10.5%+. I'm losing a small amount if it's Dems 3-6% or Dems 9-10.5%. I'm losing if it's GOP anything or Dems by less than 3%. I'm planning on picking up No shares on Dems 3%-4.5% and finishing out my buying of No GOP shares so I have 500 in every band (this will reduce my total investment in this market by a bit).

 

Electoral Vote margin of victory:
I'm kinda all over the place in this one. I was long Dems 60-149, but I really hate my 60-99 band now, and I've started selling some of that off for a small loss. I've since started initiating a long position on a Dem blow-out, Dems +280. This is my biggest long shot bet. It's basically a cheaper way of buying Texas. It requires Biden scooping Texas, Ohio, Iowa, and Georgia. This is obviously a gamble, but I think it's a good bet because if you simulate the election, the tails are pretty fat for Biden. The general consensus is that the polls will tighten by a couple points. The markets are pricing as if this is going to happen. However it's just as likely to think that the polls will move a couple points in the other direction, which is where scooping this looks much more likely. There's reason to think this will happen. Trump will see that he's about to lose. He'll throw up a risky Hail Mary to try to win. It'll backfire and the margin will expand even further. I'm really not risking that much. The bulk of my risk is in Dem 150 to 279. I will lose $430 if that happens. If Dem 280+ happens, I will win $4,596 (after rake). This bet is not for those with a weak stomach. If you have a weak stomach, see Nevada, Minnesota, or New Hampshire for a no-stress bet.

 

Texas:
This is basically a turnout market bet. Beto lost by 2.5%. Texas has likely swung a couple points further to the left since then. It'll be a close one. Happy to buy at good odds, but this is a market I will consider trading out of before election day. Yes I know, it's a liberal pipe dream. "Tilt R".

 

Florida:
Florida won't even be particularly close this year. Trump has lost the senior vote. About a billion Puerto Ricans moved to Florida after Maria. Gillum was a trash candidate in 2018. Trump is doing better with Cubans compared to 2016, but it won't be enough. Not quite "Safe D", but heavily "Lean D"

 

Pennsylvania:
PA is the most important state this year. If you don't think "Scranton Joe" will outperform "Crooked Hillary" by 1% in PA, I don't know what to tell you. Biden polling really well in the Midwest in general. Yes I know, the polls are wrong and Trump will rig the election. I already know all that. I am maxed out in this state. Safe D.

 

Minnesota:
File this under "Free money". It's fiscally irresponsible to have anything in a zero interest savings account when you can park your money here for a free 30% ROI in one month. My only regret is not maxing out at 62 cents. Safe D.

 

Michigan:
It'll outperform Wisconsin and PA, but probably not MN. Safe D.

 

Wisconsin:
At the beginning of the year I thought Trump had a good shot here. i was wide-eyed and innocent back then. I maxed out during the riots. Safe D.

 

Arizona:
"bUt aRiZoNa iS a ReD sTaTe!". Alright, good luck betting that way. It'll have one of the biggest swings between 2016 and 2020. Having said that, I would buy Florida before I would buy Arizona or NC. FL is the best value of the 3. This market has been fluctuating quite a bit and I may pick up a few more shares here. Lean D.

 

TO BE CONTINUED SINCE I CAN ONLY POST 17 IMAGES IN A SINGLE POST...