And They’re Off!

Horse racing is probably a bad analogy for an election, but it paints the right picture for the moment.  According to the British bookie, William Hill, the 2016 campaign for president of the United States has officially begun with the first major wager being placed on the election.  The odds that Hillary Clinton will be elected currently stand at 5-2. Hill moved the odds on Ms. Clinton from 2-1 to 5-2 because of that race-starting wager of $2400 on Hillary.

William Hill is firmly established in this country. With the completion of its purchase of the Club Cal Neva sports book division, William Hill now operates the majority of the sports books in Nevada.  That means we see more news stories about the company than we did before they came to Nevada.  It also means we will begin to see a real test of the power of odds to predict an outcome.

Some mathematicians have been saying for a while that the collective intelligence of the human race is the most powerful intellectual force in existence.  There is a problem in harnessing that power.  However it can be harnessed, one way to harness it is with the internet.  The internet allows millions of people to participate in solving a problem; the internet makes it possible to tabulate millions of people’s opinions.  The theory says that the “right answer” will be found in the collective thought of large numbers of people.

Another way to use the collective intelligence of the race is in wagering. Put a proposition on the board, expose it to the world and let the world tell you what is going to happen.  William Hill may not be collecting the wisdom of the entire race, but the propositions on the presidency will remain posted until the actual votes are counted.  The theory is the same, only with wagering, people have an incentive to weigh in on the subject and the incentive attracts the most informed of the possible participants.

William Hill and the other British bookies have given us a way to compare two methods for determining in advance who will be the next president – the old polling method and the new wagering method.  Now we can test whether the Gallop method of calling a hundred, a thousand or even ten thousand people and asking them how they will vote is best or if William Hill’s method of posting the proposition and letting the bettors of the world predict the outcome is best .  My bet is on the bookies – which way are you betting?

The American presidential election may be three years away, but that isn’t stopping gamblers from placing wagers on who will succeed President Barack Obama in the White House. William Hill said Monday that a customer in London placed a $2,400 bet with 5-2 odds on former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to succeed Obama as president in 2016.  A company spokesman said it was the largest bet placed so far on the 2016 U.S. presidential election. William Hill has cut Clinton’s odds to 2-1 from 5-2, making her the odds-on favorite.  “This bet on Hillary Clinton, together with a run of support for (New Jersey Gov.) Chris Christie, reducing his odds from 20-1 to 10-1, seems to signal the presidential race coming under starter’s orders as far as political punters are concerned,” William Hill spokesman Graham Sharpe said. Chris Sieroty, Las Vegas Review-Journal, 11-11-13