[The emotions and strategies behind record-setting bets on a MAGA
victory that never came.] [[link removed]]

HOW OFFSHORE ODDSMAKERS MADE A KILLING OFF GULLIBLE TRUMP SUPPORTERS
 
[[link removed]]


 

Alex Kirshner
December 17, 2020
Slate
[[link removed]]


*
[[link removed]]
*
[[link removed]]
*
* [[link removed]]

_ The emotions and strategies behind record-setting bets on a MAGA
victory that never came. _

, Photo illustration by Slate. Photo by Jason Redmond/AFP via Getty
Images and Professor25/iStock/Getty Images Plus.

 

On Dec. 9, Donald Trump tweeted something incorrect but at least
closer to the ballpark of the truth than most of what he’s posted
since losing his reelection campaign.

“At 10 p.m. on Election Evening, we were at 97% [to] win with the
so-called ‘bookies,’ ” Trump wrote
[[link removed]]. The
“so-called ‘bookies’ ” never had Trump as a 97 percent
favorite, but late on the night of Nov. 3, many online sportsbooks did
indeed favor him to win the presidency. At points between 10 p.m. and
11:30 p.m. Eastern, many of these bookmakers—all of which are
offshore, because election betting is not legal in the United
States—posted odds that gave Trump around a 70 percent chance of
victory. At 10:30 p.m., one of the most popular offshore books for
U.S. bettors, Costa Rica–based Bovada, had Trump at -775, meaning a
successful $775 bet would return $100 in profit. It implied an 89
percent chance that Trump would win.

On Dec. 9, Donald Trump tweeted something incorrect but at least
closer to the ballpark of the truth than most of what he’s posted
since losing his reelection campaign.

“At 10 p.m. on Election Evening, we were at 97% [to] win with the
so-called ‘bookies,’ ” Trump wrote
[[link removed]]. The
“so-called ‘bookies’ ” never had Trump as a 97 percent
favorite, but late on the night of Nov. 3, many online sportsbooks did
indeed favor him to win the presidency. At points between 10 p.m. and
11:30 p.m. Eastern, many of these bookmakers—all of which are
offshore, because election betting is not legal in the United
States—posted odds that gave Trump around a 70 percent chance of
victory. At 10:30 p.m., one of the most popular offshore books for
U.S. bettors, Costa Rica–based Bovada, had Trump at -775, meaning a
successful $775 bet would return $100 in profit. It implied an 89
percent chance that Trump would win.

Offshore sportsbooks do not share detailed financials, but the 2020
election appears to have been the biggest online betting event in at
least American history, to say nothing of what licensed bookmakers in
Europe might have made.

Bovada’s head oddsmaker, Pat Morrow, said that his site handled
“eight figures” in election bets, 95 percent of them coming from
Americans, and that 30 percent more cash had been wagered on the race
than the site’s previous biggest event, the Chiefs-49ers Super Bowl
in February. At Panama-based BetOnline, the election also brought the
largest sum of total wagers in history: “mid–eight figures,”
according to sportsbook brand manager Dave Mason.

Whether the global online betting industry took in tens of millions,
hundreds of millions, or billions of dollars in election bets will
probably never be known. But to get an idea, imagine how much money is
wagered on the biggest sports events, and then go much higher.

“Everybody knows that the Super Bowl is the biggest bet event of the
year by far, and this doubled the last two combined,” Mason says.
“It was absolutely insane. Not only the amount of people betting it,
but the big bets that were coming in. Five figures and even six-figure
bets coming in on both sides. We’d never seen anything like it.”

The odds-shifting bonanza on election night, with all that money on
the line, was not a sign that the oddsmakers knew something the
mainstream media did not. Instead, the Trump spike was the peak of a
phenomenon that had been unfolding all year. Many Trump supporters
were certain he could not lose, and they plowed so much money into
betting on him that they distorted markets in his (and ultimately, the
sportsbooks’) favor.

“It’s the most irrational market I ever saw,” says Collin
Sherwin, a Tampa, Florida–based gambling writer who covers the
industry for Vox Media’s DraftKings Nation
[[link removed]].

Early in 2020, Trump was a steady if not overwhelming favorite at the
sportsbooks. It made sense; the campaign had yet to start in earnest,
but incumbents usually win and “the economy” was in good shape.

On Feb. 27, Bovada had Trump at -180 to win. That meant a $180 bet
would return a $100 profit, implying a 64 percent chance he’d win.
Joe Biden, struggling in the Democratic primary, was +2000, meaning a
$100 bet would return $2,000 in profit if he won the general election.
But then Biden—whom odds tended to portray as a likelier victor than
primary rival Bernie Sanders—began to rebound.

Then the pandemic hit the U.S. In election betting terms, COVID-19
meant three things:

1) Most of the world saw Trump’s catastrophic handling of the virus
for what it was, and his betting odds got longer as his approval
rating sank.

2) People were cooped up inside, with fewer places to spend their
money. And just as the gamified investment app Robinhood saw massive
user growth during the pandemic’s early months
[[link removed]],
so did election betting markets.

3) The pandemic left people devoid of bettable events. “One of the
few things that still seemed to be happening in the world, while very
little was happening, were the primaries were still under way,”
Morrow says.

As the pandemic wore on and Trump’s disinterest in managing it
became clear, Biden’s odds got better and better. On June 4, Biden
became the favorite for the first time at Bovada, moving to -110 while
Trump was even money.

All this while, Trump’s odds were miles ahead of what election
number crunchers suggested they should be. At the beginning of June,
the betting odds said a Biden win was slightly likelier than a coin
flip. At the same time, FiveThirtyEight’s polls-based model
[[link removed]] had
Biden around 70 percent to win. (Nate Silver repeatedly noted this
discrepancy and said
[[link removed]] in
August that betting markets had become “so dumb as to perhaps be a
contrarian indicator at this point.”) The Economist’s model
[[link removed]] had Biden
closer to 80 percent.

Whether you believe in the virtues of polling and election modeling at
this point or not
[[link removed]],
it was a weird split. When oddsmakers set the line for a Big Ten
football game, analytical models heavily inform the point spread. If
Ohio State is favored to beat Rutgers by 43, it’s because a computer
predicted a result in that neighborhood. Then, the spread moves a bit
based on injuries, betting patterns, and any useful information
oddsmakers receive.

Here, the computers and the betting odds kept a wide gap. Oddsmakers
don’t set odds based on what they think will happen. They aim to
limit their risk and to create the best chance of “the
house”—the bookmaker—making a profit. Too much money bet on one
side is a liability. And in this case, there was _so _much money on
one side: Trump’s.

“We needed Biden big,” Mason of BetOnline says. “We needed him
huge.”

Throughout the year at Bovada, Morrow says, the money coming in was
around 2-to-1 for Trump. At BetOnline, around 60 percent of bettors
were on Trump, though the total money was closer to 50-50, meaning
Biden backers placed some large bets.

For most of the year, Trump’s short odds to win (requiring bettors
to risk more money for smaller winnings) were not a reflection of
inside political knowledge, or of the oddsmakers being MAGA guys.
Bookmakers were taking on so many Trump bets that they consistently
tried to _discourage _people from betting on him.

“The Trump guys were just out in full force,” Mason says.
“According to the true odds, they probably could’ve got a better
price, but us and probably every other book kept it lower than it
should, just because we were all so exposed on it.”

Time and again, the effort to get Trump bettors to chill out failed.

For Trump fans, it seems possible that the betting odds acted as
“proof” that the polls were wrong, the smart people knew it, and
their man would win.

A few factors might explain the yearlong surge in pro-Trump
bets. First, think about the median person who regularly engages in
online betting. The stereotype that popped into your brain is probably
correct.

“Trump supporters are loud,” Morrow says. “They love Trump in a
way that most candidates are not beloved, but they also represent the
demographic of a lot of sports bettors. These are people that are 18
to 45, generally white male.”

Also, consider that Trump maintained that he could not lose this
election, at least not legally. If he lost, he signaled, he would
lean on Republican underlings and judges
[[link removed]] to
flip the result. (He then did
[[link removed]] the
leaning, if not the flipping.) Only a quarter of Republicans, even by
December, believed
[[link removed]] Biden’s
win was legitimate. On Tuesday, a day after the Electoral College
voted for Biden, people were still backing Trump on PredictIt, a
predictions market, meaning anyone who wanted to could make free money
betting on Biden.

“If you watched OANN [around or after the election], you’re
watching something that you and I would never recognize,” Sherwin
says. “It’s just a whole completely different world out there. And
there is enough money amongst old, rich, white people that live in
that bubble that take advantage of this betting opportunity for two
reasons. One, what they feel and what they believe, but two, it’s
also a way to kind of stick it to the ‘lamestream media.’ You know
what I mean? I think they can be like, _Oh, you guys don’t know
what you’re talking about, and I think I can profit off of this
because you don’t understand the Real America_.”

Sherwin’s theory of older, moneyed bettors contradicts Morrow’s
view of bettors as mostly young guys. But the two agree that MAGA
rhetoric influenced betting market behavior.

Here’s another clue that Trump’s cult of personality inspired
abundant irrational betting. For the first few months of the general
election, Bovada bettors could toss their money into two different
general election markets. One was “Biden against Trump,” the other
“the Democratic Party against the Republican Party.”

While Trump got the overwhelming share of the money against Biden,
those who bet on a party_ _put more money on the Democrats.

“People wanted to have a _Trump_ [betting] ticket,” Morrow says.
“They didn’t wanna have a ‘Republican Party to win the
presidential election’ ticket.”

“People bet on their favorite team, right?” adds Mason. “If
you’re a Yankees fan, you’re betting the dang Yankees every night.
It helps that they’re great, but there’s a lot of favoritism
there. And you see that in political betting, too. You really do. You
see people that are betting with their heart.”

On Election Day, FiveThirtyEight’s model gave Biden an 89 percent
chance to win. Betting markets, on the other hand, generally placed
Biden between 60 and 70 percent.

Usually, portraying one side as more likely to win than they should be
(and thus lowering the payout if they win) sends bettors in the other
direction. But for Trump fans, it seems possible that the betting odds
acted as “proof” that the polls were wrong, the smart people knew
it, and their man would win.

“Maybe we were signaling to Trump supporters, ‘Hey, keep the
faith, it’s a lot closer than the polls are suggesting,’ ”
Morrow says. “But all we were really doing was reacting to a
liability.”

As election night progressed, it wasn’t unusual even for politically
engaged liberals to see the returns in Florida and North Carolina and
have considerable worries about a 2016-esque disaster. The odds’
heavy moves toward Trump that night—when he spent an hour or two as
a 70 percent or better favorite on many websites—reflected some of
that. Oddsmakers were considering their Trump liability but also
reacting in real time, and it wasn’t yet a fait accompli that Biden
would carry Michigan, Wisconsin, and Pennsylvania.

“There _was_ that déjà vu thing watching that red and blue map
on CNN or Fox or whatever we were watching it on, and the early count
had all these swing states going to Trump,” Mason says.

Some bettors backed Biden when his odds became long enough, and they
made significant profits. But Morrow said the Biden money, which was
subject to live betting limits, barely made a dent in Bovada’s
financial picture. The money still favored Trump.

“Anyone that got Biden live, I mean, great bet,” Morrow says,
“but it didn’t hurt us at all. It was not even a flesh wound. We
still cleaned up.”

Late that night, Fox News called Arizona for Biden, and Nevada started
looking good for him, too. Overnight, new batches of mail ballots made
Biden the clear favorite in Wisconsin and Michigan and suggested he
was on a good pace in Pennsylvania. By the morning, Biden was a heavy
favorite all over the market. And by 2:30 p.m. Eastern on Thursday,
two days after the vote, Biden was -1100 and Trump was +575 at Bovada.

Through it all, Morrow said a huge majority of the money bet at his
site remained on Trump—including “3- or 4-to-1” on
Trump _after _the election.

“I think part of that was again the idea that ‘he might lose the
traditional election at this rate, but we still have our ace in the
hole: this potentially going through legislatures or the courts,’
which again, if you take Donald Trump seriously—this is the route he
always said he was going to go,” Morrow says.

It took most of the bookmakers weeks to settle bets on the election.
Mason and Morrow heard frequently from Biden bettors impatiently
waiting on their payouts and from Trump bettors thanking them for not
rushing to rash decisions. When they did eventually settle state and
national bets, waiting until contested states certified results, the
public faces of the big offshore sportsbooks got a different response
from Trump bettors.

“ ‘You’re gonna regret this,’ ” Morrow recalls hearing from
angry Trump bettors. “ ‘You’re gonna rue the day. This is gonna
be the end of you. You’re gonna be working at McDonald’s.’ ”
(Morrow sets odds from Antigua, where there does appear
[[link removed]] to
be at least one McDonald’s.)

It is sometimes hard to tell which alleged Trump bettors are real and
which are not. One screenshot surfaced
[[link removed]] of a
bettor claiming to have bet $27,000 on Trump and demanding a refund
but offering to have half of his bet returned to him as a compromise.

On Dec. 9, Donald Trump tweeted something incorrect but at least
closer to the ballpark of the truth than most of what he’s posted
since losing his reelection campaign.

“At 10 p.m. on Election Evening, we were at 97% [to] win with the
so-called ‘bookies,’ ” Trump wrote
[[link removed]]. The
“so-called ‘bookies’ ” never had Trump as a 97 percent
favorite, but late on the night of Nov. 3, many online sportsbooks did
indeed favor him to win the presidency. At points between 10 p.m. and
11:30 p.m. Eastern, many of these bookmakers—all of which are
offshore, because election betting is not legal in the United
States—posted odds that gave Trump around a 70 percent chance of
victory. At 10:30 p.m., one of the most popular offshore books for
U.S. bettors, Costa Rica–based Bovada, had Trump at -775, meaning a
successful $775 bet would return $100 in profit. It implied an 89
percent chance that Trump would win.

If you were cursed enough to be following betting markets on election
night, those numbers might have hit you like the New York Times’
2016 needle
[[link removed]] on
megasteroids. Political analysts had warned that delays in counting
mail-in ballots could create a “red mirage
[[link removed]],”
where Republicans would look good based on the Election Day vote
before Democrats made up ground. But the betting odds were not buying
that theory of the race. They moved hard toward Trump when it became
clear he would win Florida and looked good in North Carolina, Ohio,
and Texas.

The betting markets were not good predictors, but they weren’t
trying to be. The online bookmakers that fielded bets on the election
saw their largest single-event windfall ever. To understand why, you
need to understand election betting and Donald Trump supporters.

Offshore sportsbooks do not share detailed financials, but the 2020
election appears to have been the biggest online betting event in at
least American history, to say nothing of what licensed bookmakers in
Europe might have made.

Bovada’s head oddsmaker, Pat Morrow, said that his site handled
“eight figures” in election bets, 95 percent of them coming from
Americans, and that 30 percent more cash had been wagered on the race
than the site’s previous biggest event, the Chiefs-49ers Super Bowl
in February. At Panama-based BetOnline, the election also brought the
largest sum of total wagers in history: “mid–eight figures,”
according to sportsbook brand manager Dave Mason.

Whether the global online betting industry took in tens of millions,
hundreds of millions, or billions of dollars in election bets will
probably never be known. But to get an idea, imagine how much money is
wagered on the biggest sports events, and then go much higher.

“Everybody knows that the Super Bowl is the biggest bet event of the
year by far, and this doubled the last two combined,” Mason says.
“It was absolutely insane. Not only the amount of people betting it,
but the big bets that were coming in. Five figures and even six-figure
bets coming in on both sides. We’d never seen anything like it.”

The odds-shifting bonanza on election night, with all that money on
the line, was not a sign that the oddsmakers knew something the
mainstream media did not. Instead, the Trump spike was the peak of a
phenomenon that had been unfolding all year. Many Trump supporters
were certain he could not lose, and they plowed so much money into
betting on him that they distorted markets in his (and ultimately, the
sportsbooks’) favor.

“It’s the most irrational market I ever saw,” says Collin
Sherwin, a Tampa, Florida–based gambling writer who covers the
industry for Vox Media’s DraftKings Nation
[[link removed]].

Early in 2020, Trump was a steady if not overwhelming favorite at the
sportsbooks. It made sense; the campaign had yet to start in earnest,
but incumbents usually win and “the economy” was in good shape.

On Feb. 27, Bovada had Trump at -180 to win. That meant a $180 bet
would return a $100 profit, implying a 64 percent chance he’d win.
Joe Biden, struggling in the Democratic primary, was +2000, meaning a
$100 bet would return $2,000 in profit if he won the general election.
But then Biden—whom odds tended to portray as a likelier victor than
primary rival Bernie Sanders—began to rebound.

Then the pandemic hit the U.S. In election betting terms, COVID-19
meant three things:

1) Most of the world saw Trump’s catastrophic handling of the virus
for what it was, and his betting odds got longer as his approval
rating sank.

2) People were cooped up inside, with fewer places to spend their
money. And just as the gamified investment app Robinhood saw massive
user growth during the pandemic’s early months
[[link removed]],
so did election betting markets.

3) The pandemic left people devoid of bettable events. “One of the
few things that still seemed to be happening in the world, while very
little was happening, were the primaries were still under way,”
Morrow says.

As the pandemic wore on and Trump’s disinterest in managing it
became clear, Biden’s odds got better and better. On June 4, Biden
became the favorite for the first time at Bovada, moving to -110 while
Trump was even money.

All this while, Trump’s odds were miles ahead of what election
number crunchers suggested they should be. At the beginning of June,
the betting odds said a Biden win was slightly likelier than a coin
flip. At the same time, FiveThirtyEight’s polls-based model
[[link removed]] had
Biden around 70 percent to win. (Nate Silver repeatedly noted this
discrepancy and said
[[link removed]] in
August that betting markets had become “so dumb as to perhaps be a
contrarian indicator at this point.”) The Economist’s model
[[link removed]] had Biden
closer to 80 percent.

Whether you believe in the virtues of polling and election modeling at
this point or not
[[link removed]],
it was a weird split. When oddsmakers set the line for a Big Ten
football game, analytical models heavily inform the point spread. If
Ohio State is favored to beat Rutgers by 43, it’s because a computer
predicted a result in that neighborhood. Then, the spread moves a bit
based on injuries, betting patterns, and any useful information
oddsmakers receive.

Here, the computers and the betting odds kept a wide gap. Oddsmakers
don’t set odds based on what they think will happen. They aim to
limit their risk and to create the best chance of “the
house”—the bookmaker—making a profit. Too much money bet on one
side is a liability. And in this case, there was _so _much money on
one side: Trump’s.

“We needed Biden big,” Mason of BetOnline says. “We needed him
huge.”

Throughout the year at Bovada, Morrow says, the money coming in was
around 2-to-1 for Trump. At BetOnline, around 60 percent of bettors
were on Trump, though the total money was closer to 50-50, meaning
Biden backers placed some large bets.

For most of the year, Trump’s short odds to win (requiring bettors
to risk more money for smaller winnings) were not a reflection of
inside political knowledge, or of the oddsmakers being MAGA guys.
Bookmakers were taking on so many Trump bets that they consistently
tried to _discourage _people from betting on him.

“The Trump guys were just out in full force,” Mason says.
“According to the true odds, they probably could’ve got a better
price, but us and probably every other book kept it lower than it
should, just because we were all so exposed on it.”

Time and again, the effort to get Trump bettors to chill out failed.

For Trump fans, it seems possible that the betting odds acted as
“proof” that the polls were wrong, the smart people knew it, and
their man would win.

A few factors might explain the yearlong surge in pro-Trump
bets. First, think about the median person who regularly engages in
online betting. The stereotype that popped into your brain is probably
correct.

“Trump supporters are loud,” Morrow says. “They love Trump in a
way that most candidates are not beloved, but they also represent the
demographic of a lot of sports bettors. These are people that are 18
to 45, generally white male.”

Also, consider that Trump maintained that he could not lose this
election, at least not legally. If he lost, he signaled, he would
lean on Republican underlings and judges
[[link removed]] to
flip the result. (He then did
[[link removed]] the
leaning, if not the flipping.) Only a quarter of Republicans, even by
December, believed
[[link removed]] Biden’s
win was legitimate. On Tuesday, a day after the Electoral College
voted for Biden, people were still backing Trump on PredictIt, a
predictions market, meaning anyone who wanted to could make free money
betting on Biden.

“If you watched OANN [around or after the election], you’re
watching something that you and I would never recognize,” Sherwin
says. “It’s just a whole completely different world out there. And
there is enough money amongst old, rich, white people that live in
that bubble that take advantage of this betting opportunity for two
reasons. One, what they feel and what they believe, but two, it’s
also a way to kind of stick it to the ‘lamestream media.’ You know
what I mean? I think they can be like, _Oh, you guys don’t know
what you’re talking about, and I think I can profit off of this
because you don’t understand the Real America_.”

Sherwin’s theory of older, moneyed bettors contradicts Morrow’s
view of bettors as mostly young guys. But the two agree that MAGA
rhetoric influenced betting market behavior.

Here’s another clue that Trump’s cult of personality inspired
abundant irrational betting. For the first few months of the general
election, Bovada bettors could toss their money into two different
general election markets. One was “Biden against Trump,” the other
“the Democratic Party against the Republican Party.”

While Trump got the overwhelming share of the money against Biden,
those who bet on a party_ _put more money on the Democrats.

“People wanted to have a _Trump_ [betting] ticket,” Morrow says.
“They didn’t wanna have a ‘Republican Party to win the
presidential election’ ticket.”

“People bet on their favorite team, right?” adds Mason. “If
you’re a Yankees fan, you’re betting the dang Yankees every night.
It helps that they’re great, but there’s a lot of favoritism
there. And you see that in political betting, too. You really do. You
see people that are betting with their heart.”

On Election Day, FiveThirtyEight’s model gave Biden an 89 percent
chance to win. Betting markets, on the other hand, generally placed
Biden between 60 and 70 percent.

Usually, portraying one side as more likely to win than they should be
(and thus lowering the payout if they win) sends bettors in the other
direction. But for Trump fans, it seems possible that the betting odds
acted as “proof” that the polls were wrong, the smart people knew
it, and their man would win.

“Maybe we were signaling to Trump supporters, ‘Hey, keep the
faith, it’s a lot closer than the polls are suggesting,’ ”
Morrow says. “But all we were really doing was reacting to a
liability.”

As election night progressed, it wasn’t unusual even for politically
engaged liberals to see the returns in Florida and North Carolina and
have considerable worries about a 2016-esque disaster. The odds’
heavy moves toward Trump that night—when he spent an hour or two as
a 70 percent or better favorite on many websites—reflected some of
that. Oddsmakers were considering their Trump liability but also
reacting in real time, and it wasn’t yet a fait accompli that Biden
would carry Michigan, Wisconsin, and Pennsylvania.

“There _was_ that déjà vu thing watching that red and blue map
on CNN or Fox or whatever we were watching it on, and the early count
had all these swing states going to Trump,” Mason says.

Some bettors backed Biden when his odds became long enough, and they
made significant profits. But Morrow said the Biden money, which was
subject to live betting limits, barely made a dent in Bovada’s
financial picture. The money still favored Trump.

“Anyone that got Biden live, I mean, great bet,” Morrow says,
“but it didn’t hurt us at all. It was not even a flesh wound. We
still cleaned up.”

Late that night, Fox News called Arizona for Biden, and Nevada started
looking good for him, too. Overnight, new batches of mail ballots made
Biden the clear favorite in Wisconsin and Michigan and suggested he
was on a good pace in Pennsylvania. By the morning, Biden was a heavy
favorite all over the market. And by 2:30 p.m. Eastern on Thursday,
two days after the vote, Biden was -1100 and Trump was +575 at Bovada.

Through it all, Morrow said a huge majority of the money bet at his
site remained on Trump—including “3- or 4-to-1” on
Trump _after _the election.

“I think part of that was again the idea that ‘he might lose the
traditional election at this rate, but we still have our ace in the
hole: this potentially going through legislatures or the courts,’
which again, if you take Donald Trump seriously—this is the route he
always said he was going to go,” Morrow says.

It took most of the bookmakers weeks to settle bets on the election.
Mason and Morrow heard frequently from Biden bettors impatiently
waiting on their payouts and from Trump bettors thanking them for not
rushing to rash decisions. When they did eventually settle state and
national bets, waiting until contested states certified results, the
public faces of the big offshore sportsbooks got a different response
from Trump bettors.

“ ‘You’re gonna regret this,’ ” Morrow recalls hearing from
angry Trump bettors. “ ‘You’re gonna rue the day. This is gonna
be the end of you. You’re gonna be working at McDonald’s.’ ”
(Morrow sets odds from Antigua, where there does appear
[[link removed]] to
be at least one McDonald’s.)

It is sometimes hard to tell which alleged Trump bettors are real and
which are not. One screenshot surfaced
[[link removed]] of a
bettor claiming to have bet $27,000 on Trump and demanding a refund
but offering to have half of his bet returned to him as a compromise.

Only after the election did bookmakers reach the “taking candy from
a baby” portion of the proceedings.

“We’ve got people living in two different realities politically,
and we’ve got people _betting_ in two different realities,”
Sherwin says.

Are the bookmakers totally innocent? Were they baiting Trump
supporters all along, milking gullible gamblers for all they were
willing to bet?

Not in the beginning. The oddsmakers were living in the same
simulation as the rest of us, unable to get Trump supporters to stop
betting on their hero (and to stop adding to the sportsbooks’
liability). Both Bovada and BetOnline felt they were
conservative_ _with Trump’s odds, trying to slow down his backers.

“If anything, we were baiting _Biden_ bettors,” Mason says.
“We were giving them the discount.”

Only after the election did bookmakers reach the “taking candy from
a baby” portion of the proceedings. Mason tweeted
[[link removed]] the day
after the election, when Trump’s odds at BetOnline were +525 and 80
percent of the bets were _still _coming in on Trump, “Our massive
liability continues to grow.”

That, to me, reads like baiting the gullible. But even then: Trump
supporters were doing it to themselves. It’s not the sportsbooks’
fault if someone doesn’t realize that businesspeople aspire to
separate customers from their money.

The sportsbooks won untold millions off a political movement’s
refusal to accept reality. It wasn’t the oddsmakers’ plan to win
by such large margins, and doing so despite making Trump a relative
favorite was largely good fortune.

The 2020 election had many losers: Trump, his supporters, and American
democracy chief among them. But almost by accident, the race created
huge winners beyond Joe Biden. The biggest, arguably, were based not
in Washington but in places like Panama City, and entirely unregulated
by the government Biden was elected to lead.

_ALEX KIRSHNER is a writer and editor in D.C. He co-hosts the Split
Zone Duo podcast
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co-writes the Moon Crew
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_Support SLATE’S politics coverage.  Join Slate Plus.
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