Prediction Markets Coming to Trump - Harris (But not in the U.S.)

Do polls matter? And can we trust them? What about political betting markets?

These three questions have been on my mind a lot lately.

I love data. Am enamored with politics; have a profound interest in media. And a curious mind.

So, "Do polls matter?..."

I'll cut to the chase.

Answers: I don't know: I don't know: and I don't know.

Phew; glad I got that off my chest.

But in all seriousness, it's uncertainty that brings out my interest level in a topic the most. If you know how the movie or the book ends, why stick around for the very last part.

Think about Nate Silver for a moment. Great statistician. Love his work. He's brilliant.

But in 2016, he missed the mark by a lot. He said Mr. Trump only had a 29% chance to win. Oddly enough, that percentage was the highest in the country among statisticians. (Most of us remember how that election turned out.)

Mr. Silver said later: "I don’t think people have a good intuitive sense for how to translate polls to probabilities."

There's been a lot of handwringing since; the central point is that all the polls, and all the king's horses and all the analysts before, during and since then...were flat out dead wrong. At least in terms of the final outcome for the WH in 2016.

Fast forward to today. Mr. Trump holds a seemingly comfortable advantage in betting markets at 53-44%. Granted, only a few days ago, the prognostics were 60-40 in his favor.

But here's my question: does anyone think the demographics of the average Polymarkets bettor identically mirror those of the average American voter?

What are the racial backgrounds of one group versus the other; the income levels; the education profiles; arrest records; home ownership, ages; zip codes, and so on.

Theory: the betting markets tend to favor Donald Trump because - what a shock - more platform users lean right than left, anyways, so how can you be so sure of anything at all. I'm sure of nothing. Except the fact that history shows the aggregation of polls don't mean much, and the betting markets probably don't, either.

But then again: I could be wrong. I usually am.

Regardless: I won't stop watching, waiting, whispering and wondering.