Sportsbooks are often used as an indicator of objectivity, a place where those that set the odds and numbers have no loyalty to anything but the money. In sports, this can be true, as books want as close to an even split of money on each game — because by way of the rake, they will pull in a modest winning on 50-50 betting.
What many fail to realize, however, is that the betting markets are also swayed by the money that comes in. Lines move constantly, as books adjust to the amount of money and bets coming in on one side, and if it begins to get too heavy, they rapidly shift to try and coax money out of the other to, once again, get things closer to even. Offshore sportsbooks are not beholden to regulations of state commissions and as such are allowed to offer odds on things that those in Las Vegas, New Jersey, and the various other states that have legalized sports betting cannot, including, for example the U.S. presidential election.
On election night, the odds skewed heavily towards Donald Trump, but not because the books were being swayed by the early ballot counts. Instead, it was the result of a flood of money on Trump from his supporters that they were chasing, as Alex Kirshner explored for Slate, speaking with Dave Mason of BetOnline and Pat Morrow of Bovada, two of the most prominent offshore oddsmakers.
Trump famously tweeted about the betting markets projecting him at 97 percent at one point on Tuesday night — which was false as the highest his implied odds reached was 89 percent — but the overall sentiment wasn’t completely wrong, it just failed to account for why the markets shifted. It wasn’t a belief from the books that Trump was going to win, but the belief from his supporters that led them to continue shoveling money into the books — where the percentage of Trump supporters that frequent said books is much higher than that of the general population
“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.”
“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.”
They were shifting the odds toward Trump to try and slow the money coming in on him because had Trump won, they would’ve lost a record amount of money. Instead, they won and won big, leading to many crying foul and Trump supporters taking it on the chin, sometimes in drastic figures.
So how much money was out there for the election? According to Mason, it was more than double the handle of the last two Super Bowls combined.
“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.”
That’s a preposterous amount of money, and the books desperately needed Biden. Even though they don’t have brick and mortar buildings like those out in the desert, the proverbial offshore buildings are still tall and shiny for a reason. And Trump supporters just made them taller and shinier than ever before.