US Elections 2020: UK gambler bets one million pound on Biden win
Nov 03, 2020
New York [US], November 3 : Democratic Presidential nominee Joe Biden's greatest admirer is not in the US but in the UK where somebody has placed a one million British pound or USD 1.29 million on the former Vice President to clinch the White House on Election Day.
According to CNN, while people in the US are not allowed to place legal wagers on the elections, the legal betting market is the UK is soaring, turning the 2020 presidential elections to be the most-bet-upon-event in history.
While the identity of the bettor, who placed the bet on Biden is not known, they would win 540,000 British Pounds($696,170) as profit along with getting the 1 million pounds wager returned.
CNN reported that oddsmakers have placed Biden's chance of winning the election at 65 per cent while Trump's chances at 35 per cent -- which is slightly better odds for Trump than the 2-to-1 odds last week. As per FiveThirtyEight, it's much better than the 10 per cent chance of Trump winning.
The 1 million British pound wager is tied for the third-largest bet in Betfair's history, behind 1.1 million British pounds bet on tennis player Rafael Nadal in the 2010 French Open, and slightly more than 1 million British Pounds bet on Floyd Mayweather Jr. in his 2017 match against Conor McGregor.
Pete Watt, public relations manager for OddsChecker US -- that provides advice and information to gamblers said that big-money bettors bet on favourites typically.
The bets are "flowing into Betfair at a record pace", with £274 million, or $353 million, having been recorded by Monday morning. The winning bet will be on who becomes the next president, not who wins the popular vote.
"The largest political bet ever made on Betfair Exchange, an online betting exchange, where gamblers find other gamblers who match their wagers, was a £555,000 bet made on Trump in 2016 that came in at about 12:30 am ET, the day after the election, after most of the US polls had closed, but before he was declared a winner," CNN reported further.
