Why Can’t Americans Wager on the U.S. Presidential Election?

Right now, it looks like a 50-50 proposition whether Donald Trump or Kamala Harris will win the U.S. Presidential Election. 

But American citizens cannot bet on the race within the boundaries of their country – something that confounds gamblers everywhere else in the world, where they are currently placing bets on an election that the whole world will be watching this coming November.

“I imagine that by 2028 we will be allowed to bet on it,” said Aaron Basch, who built a piece of gambling software, Sparket, that is allowing Americans to place wagers on sports leagues that most of the major regulated U.S. sportsbooks will not touch.

Sparket bills itself as a revolutionary live event wagering software that allows operating partners to grow both revenue and reach. Those operators include the World Jai-Alai League, which operates out of Miami and is dedicated to revamping the once renowned sport of jai-alai across the globe. The latest client is PennPlayCasino, which offers slots, blackjack, video poker, keno and roulette.

Basch’s company is partnered with other leagues that are out of the mainstream, including the National Women’s Hockey League along with start-up volleyball, pickleball and lacrosse leagues. The software can also be scaled down to include members of a country club competing for the club championship, and it uses a wagering system built along the lines of pari-mutual wagering systems that are used in horse racing. 

Odds are even offered on awards shows and reality television shows, although those are paid in non-cash prizes to be compliant with the hodgepodge of American gambling laws that vary from state to state.
 

Image Credits: Baphoette/ Getty Image

People broadcast their own stuff on YouTube, and they don’t need ESPN. So now that non-broadcast viewing is prevalent, it helps us create markets for non-traditional events,” Basch told betting news site SportsBoom.com. 

Prior to 2018, Americans had to travel to Nevada to wager on sporting events as part of the law known as PASPA (Professional and Amateur Sports Protection Act). But the state of New Jersey filed a lawsuit that went all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court, which ruled PASPA to be unconstitutional. That allowed states to set their own rules, and in the six-plus years since sports gambling has been legalized in 38 states along with the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico.

None of those states allow political wagering, but that has not stopped overseas books from posting odds and taking wagers. In Great Britain, not only do they gamble on American elections, but they even gamble on their own elections, and several lawmakers were recently implicated for wagering that a new election would be called, which was exactly what happened in July when Rishi Sunak of the governing Conservative Party was ousted by the Labour Party led by new Prime Minister Keir Starmer.

How popular are wagers on the U.S. Presidential Election outside of the United States? 

“Most people are shocked when they hear how much money is wagered on political markets every year,” said Jacob Crossman of Cool Media PR, which has created publicity for global gaming operators the past 15 years. 

Texas and California and the two largest states that have not yet legalized sports gambling, but it seems inevitable that Americans will eventually have legalized gambling in 49 states (with Utah remaining the lone holdout). It is merely a question of “when?”

In states where gambling is already legal, any legislature can vote to amend their law to approve gambling on elections if they so choose. In New York, where sports gambling laws do not allow wagering on anything determined by voters (Heisman Trophy, Cy Young Award, NBA Most Valuable Player, etc.), state Assemblyman J. Gary Pretlow warned that local elections should remain off limits if election wagering ever does become legalized.

Noting that he has served in the state capitol of Albany since 1993 and has a 99.9 percent chance of being re-elected, he gave a hypothetical example of him wagering on his opponent “Joe Blow” at astronomical odds, then withdrawing from the race. If he were to lock in 10,000-1 odds on his opponent, that would lead to a massive payoff.

“Nobody would know that I had money on Joe Blow.” 

“In a presidential election, there is the popular vote and also the Electoral College vote, and the person who wins the popular vote does not necessarily win the election,” Pretlow said in his interview at his Mount Vernon, N.Y. office. “If it were come to pass, it would have to have odds posted before any primary, then have the odds shift. But anything that can be manipulated should not be wagered on, and elections can be manipulated by the participants.”

At Sparket, odds do not lock in until an event begins, much like in horse racing where the morning line sometimes bears little resemblance to what the odds look like when the horses come out of the gate.

When it comes to voting on reality shows and/or awards ceremonies, Basch noted that the writers on “Game of Thrones” knew which character would ultimately become the next to sit on the throne, and their contracts called for a $50 million penalty if they told anyone how that HBO series would end in its finale.

Where Sparket is making an immediate difference is in sports that receive little or no broadcast TV coverage. Basch went into this venture thinking he would be creating an eSports betting platform, but after visiting Las Vegas and speaking with people in the industry, he realized he needed a broader audience.