I noticed in the Betsafe sportsbetting we can also bet on politics of some countries. I noticed we can bet whether and when the King and Queen of Great Britain will create the next elections. This year, next year, and so on. Looks very difficult thought. What are your thoughts on this? How would you smartbet on politics?
In poker, I suggest that players only bet on sites that they trust. Furthermore, I suggest that they only make bets when they know the odds and the expected value of that bet is positive.
For those reasons, I would never bet on politics. First off, I don't trust the markets, and secondly, it is next to impossible to know the odds.
What if we somehow knew the trends? Like Republicans is more separate USA and Democrats is more EU-minded USA? I find it fascinating the subject. I recently joined Centrist Youth of Estonia for 4 years, before that I was at Extreme Green Fighters, that was quite a personal switch for me. Now I quit politics but is nice to guess and bet I think... is just that UK and similar are very far off my knowledge, that is true...
First off, I don't trust the markets, and secondly, it is next to impossible to know the odds.
I wouldn't say it's impossible to make judgments about the posted odds on politics bets, the way people would make them on sports bets.
For example, I remember that I checked the odds of the 2016 US presidential elections on Pokerstars shortly before the event back then, just out of curiosity, with no intention of betting. The decimal odds for Donald Trump to win were at around 6.XX, if I recall correctly, and having followed the events leading up to it etc for a few months, I thought that those would have been very good odds to bet on if people were so inclined - realistically, I think I would have put them at around 1 in 3 back then, but certainly not 1 in 6, so this would have been a profitable bet based on my predictions, which, in hindsight, clearly were not terrible.
That being said, that election left a lot of so-called experts shocked back then, so it can probably be considered a special case. For elections in general, the data to base your decisions on is easily available and heavily discussed in public, so it should be difficult to gain an edge on the posted odds in most situations.
Either way, unlike sports leagues, which have weekly events to bet on that can be followed and analyzed, politics bets are usually about single big events like elections that only happen once every couple of years, so no matter how good your predictions are, it would only be a small part of your bets.
The decimal odds for Donald Trump to win were at around 6.XX,
Yes it's not so easy to always know the results for certain.
that election left a lot of so-called experts shocked back then,
Here too, people are rooting for co-change etc, so they didnt like that result of our allies' elections.
Here in Estonia was interesting the town elections, Centrists promised: "no traffic jams in future", their party almost got erased cause they couldnt pay €1million fine because of too aggressive ads that violated rules, then they still got to power in my town with 40% votes, caused major traffic jams in the main old crossroad by digging it up; and so on... Very interesting party. I think, in my life, I dont want to run such aggressive campaign, lot of work in unknown...
Very difficult to know the results sometimes, because people are sometimes tired of situation and vote for the opposite etc...
Were the results of those elections very different from public opinion polls, though? There were several state elections in Germany this month too, and while the results of some of them turned some heads, they were generally in line with the publicly available pre-election polls that I was familiar with.
The 2016 US election I mentioned seems to have been a rare exception, possibly caused by partisan polling and over-confidence in the Democrat candidate's victory.
Not to speculate too much about this decade-old election, as memorable as it was. My main point is still that while it's not impossible to make profitable bets in situations like these, you're generally working with very easily available information in these kinds of bets, which should make it difficult to beat the posted odds more often than not, if you are approaching it from a +EV gambling perspective.
Were the results of those elections very different from public opinion polls, though?
Well im currently in leftwing propaganda part of town, so every poll tells how far left will create revolution. So who won was centrists who turned their agendas leftish right before/during/after winning. The left are a bit lazy but bring lot of gamblers to real estates of this part of town.
I heard about German elections, very important! Shouldve placed some correct bets but at the moment too busy as fan in soccer club...
you're generally working with very easily available information in these kinds of bets, which should make it difficult to beat the posted odds more often than not
Yes exactly! And insiders give very subjective info! Somehow we should know more than other people about different parties and reasons why people vote for them.
should know more than other people about different parties and reasons why people vote for them.
Bear in mind that opinion polls before elections might reflect people's emotions, when in the voting booth, people (hopefully) make rational decisions.
In the most recent Canadian federal election, the Conservative party held a 24-point lead in opinion polls, but lost the election.
Yes in my opinion these polls are like easy to bias, both by creators of these polls and people who can give misinfo. The actual elections have fair people organizing them, which gives more % guarantee that these are not biased. Of course we cannot say 100% that all elections are fair, but i would say is more % chance that the elections are fair and polls are biased. This is my opinion, based on what I have seen in this part of town (anti-government people telling lies to support their illegal protests etc).
Yes in my opinion these polls are like easy to bias, both by creators of these polls and people who can give misinfo.
For German opinion polls, I keep coming back to this site, which displays the average of several different polls instead of just one source. The link leads to the polls about the federal election, but it also collects info on a state level in a similar way, so none of the latest state elections were much of a surprise to me, the polls were fairly accurate to a degree.
I would imagine that there are similar services in other countries, though I realize that it must be a lot more difficult to accurately do in much bigger and more diverse countries.
Yes, in that sense, we can look at former elections and simply place bets on previous winners, if these parties still operate. People aren't that pro-change and these parties could have experience in that field (how to win etc).
Yes, in that sense, we can look at former elections and simply place bets on previous winners, if these parties still operate. People aren't that pro-change and these parties could have experience in that field (how to win etc).
I think that's a bad idea. Unless the incumbent party or candidate is very popular, previous elections don't predict very well at all how later elections will go. In fact, when things are going less than well, many people are inclined to throw their support behind a rivaling party, whether it's a protest vote or a long-term switch.
Just looking at the results from Germany, for example, this graph compares the current polls (darker colored columns on the right) with the last federal election from only a year ago (lighter colored columns on the left). You can already see some significant differences, and a shift in the overall winner.
And before that, comparing the 2025 election results (darker colored bars at the top) with the 2021 election (lighter colored bars at the bottom), you see similarly big shifts.
SPD was the chancellor's party before 2025, CDU is the current one - you can clearly them losing a lot of support both times, so the previous election would have been a very poor predictor.
You need to know well how popular the government is to have a reasonable change to predict elections well.
If you aren't familiar with the current political climate of a particlar country it's really hard to make a good decision.
Yes im mostly interested in Democrats vs Republicans option to bet on the result in USA, i currently have a bet on their basketball league, but i see both Rs and Ds have their good sides if they would come to power. I think Republicans will win for about next 10 years but i havent placed a bet.
Yes, in that sense, we can look at former elections and simply place bets on previous winners, if these parties still operate. People aren't that pro-change and these parties could have experience in that field (how to win etc).
I think that's a bad idea. Unless the incumbent party or candidate is very popular, previous elections don't predict very well at all how later elections will go. In fact, when things are going less than well, many people are inclined to throw their support behind a rivaling party, whether it's a protest vote or a long-term switch.
Just looking at
And before that, comparing the 2025 election results (darker colored bars at the top) with the 2021 election (lighter colored bars at the bottom), you see similarly big shifts.
SPD was the chancellor's party before 2025, CDU is the current one - you can clearly them losing a lot of support both times, so the previous election would have been a very poor predictor.
Looks crazy those graphs but i think variance has decreased since 1930s? All the best.
