Betting on America: Two Gamblers, One Presidential Election

Death, Sex & Money

Slate Podcasts

Business, Health & Fitness, Society & Culture, Careers, Relationships, Sexuality

4.6 • 7.6K Ratings

🗓️ 10 December 2024

⏱️ 42 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

On election night, while many voters across the country were focused on who would win the presidency, a growing number of Americans were watching the returns with another question in mind: will I win or lose money? That’s because, just weeks before November 5th, a judge ruled that for the first time in almost a century Americans could bet large amounts of money on the outcome of political races. In this episode, we talk to two people who made big bets: Mike, a Latino Democrat who bet $10,000 on Kamala Harris winning, and Jordan, a white conservative Trump supporter who risked $60,000 on Trump's victory. And Slate’s business and tech reporter Nitish Pahwa helps Anna understand the changing legal context for gambling in America. Read Slate’s Nitish Pahwa's post on prediction markets and politics here. Plus, we have new totebags for sale! Check them out. Podcast production by Zoe Azulay Death, Sex & Money is now produced by Slate! To support us and our colleagues, please sign up for our membership program, Slate Plus! Members get ad-free podcasts, bonus content on lots of Slate shows, and full access to all the articles on Slate.com. Sign up today at slate.com/dsmplus. And if you’re new to the show, welcome. We’re so glad you’re here. Find us and follow us on Instagram and you can find Anna’s newsletter at annasale.substack.com. Our new email address, where you can reach us with voice memos, pep talks, questions, critiques, is [email protected]. Ad Disclosure in Podcast Description: A Bond Account is a self-directed brokerage account with Public Investing, member FINRA/SIPC. Deposits into this account are used to purchase 10 investment-grade and high-yield bonds. As of 9/26/24, the average, annualized yield to worst (YTW) across the Bond Account is greater than 6%. A bond’s yield is a function of its market price, which can fluctuate; therefore, a bond’s YTW is not “locked in” until the bond is purchased, and your yield at time of purchase may be different from the yield shown here. The “locked in” YTW is not guaranteed; you may receive less than the YTW of the bonds in the Bond Account if you sell any of the bonds before maturity or if the issuer defaults on the bond. Public Investing charges a markup on each bond trade. See our Fee Schedule. Bond Accounts are not recommendations of individual bonds or default allocations. The bonds in the Bond Account have not been selected based on your needs or risk profile. See https://public.com/disclosures/bond-account to learn more. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	How much money was, in the end, was riding on the election returns, the U.S. presidential election returns?
0:07.7	On Kalshi, it was the total amount traded. They say it was a 505 million.
0:14.2	That's a lot of money.
0:15.7	So much money, yeah.
0:17.8	And on polymarket, it was even bigger amount. Yeah, it was 3.6 billion. Yeah. And on polymarket, it was even bigger amount. Yeah, it was 3.6 billion.
0:24.7	So more money on these markets than was invested in campaign contributions? Right.
0:30.8	Tischpawa covers business and technology at Slate, which this year has meant covering election betting. Because on election night, while many
0:41.1	voters across the country were focused on who would win the presidential election, a growing
0:46.6	number of Americans were also watching the returns with another question in mind, will I win or
0:52.9	lose money? Who are these people? You'll meet some in this
0:58.4	episode. But first, you need some context because this has all been changing quickly. In early
1:06.0	October, basically a month before election day, a judge ruled that for the first time in almost a century, Americans could bet vast amounts of money on the outcome of political races.
1:18.7	The judge's ruling opened things up in a big way for a platform called Kalshi.
1:24.7	Kalshi is a prediction market based in New York City, and it's a platform that invites people
1:29.9	to bet on the outcomes of future events, like betting on the range of a high temperature in a
1:35.5	certain city or a movie's Rotten Tomatoes score, or whether or not there will be a major
1:40.2	earthquake in the continental U.S. before year end. And while Kalshi's been in operation since
1:45.7	2021, this ruling allowed them to also take bets on political contests. Before October, there were
1:54.7	other places to bet on U.S. elections. You might have heard of predicted and Polly Market,
1:59.8	but Pollymarket was only open to people living outside the U.S., though many people got around that via VPNs, which allowed them to hide the U.S. origins of their bets.
2:10.6	And Predict it had strict limits on the amount you could wager.
2:15.4	Kalshi has fewer guardrails. And it was on Cal Shee, where the two American
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