Political Betting Thread

[Jack Scrapper]

STFU Scythe

 

[waiguoren]

Don't think I've ever seen you win money on these boards on a posted bet. The republican base is absolutely tiny, when compared to the rest of the nation. See if you can wrap your mind around that.

It consists of almost entirely whites. Who are a minority. Compare that to the rest of the country, who loathe your friend donald. I think your lying to the board when you say "I don't support Trump," you Clearly want him to win. Or you'll say you're sitting on the Rep sticking point: 'oh anything's better than Hillary'.

Buddy if you want that buffoon to become effective leader of the world, and put the entire country down the drain, just so you can make some change in your pocket, then I have nothing I can tell you. So suck on that, and like it. wow some people are enormously dumb on these boards. Good luck with Donald trump winning the U.S presidential election.

The only bet I ever posted here was $2000 on Cote ML +130 for Cote-Saunders. You can check the record if you don't believe me. Today's bet is only my second ever posted on this forum. I had $3000 on Letourneau ML -155.

According to the 2010 United States Census, white people constitute 74.8% of the US population. Perhaps you have a different definition of "minority" than I am familiar with. Or perhaps you think that 74.8% has dropped more than 24.8% in six years. Or perhaps you don't trust the Census Bureau.

My personal feeling---since you are fascinated by it---is that neither Clinton nor Trump is fit to be president of the United States. In my eyes, they are equally disqualified.

My political persuasion will have no outcome on the election nor on your opinion, and will not preclude me from making money on this election.

Finally, the idea of making a personal bet with you is that we can both get a better line than the bookies will give us and will also get higher limits this way. If your bookie allows you to place thousands on political races, please let me know which bookie you're playing with.

 

[waiguoren]

Trump just gave what I thought was a very effective speech. It was the first of its kind.

He laid out a lot of what I find I and many other independents find unacceptable about Clinton. I guess firing Lewandowski was a good decision. He should promote the speechwriter, whoever it was. Looks like we are entering the "teleprompter battle" phase of the election cycle. Whose telepromptering skillz will win?

 

[Slohog]

Since some guy seemed to think that you have to like Donald to bet him I'd like to point out some of my political history.

Spoiler

Last election in Sweden I bet big at even money on "Feminist initiative" under 4.0%, which won.

I also bet big on a under line on "The Sweden democrats" which lost when they surged late (mostly in my opinion to the government radio looking super biased when they tried to claim that their leader was a gambling addict two days before the election on very loose grounds).

I bet big on the overs (both hit, but had juiced lines) on the Christian democrats and the Centre Party, both of which hit and both parties were included in the most pro immigration government in modern Swedish history, the latter's leadership famously supported totally free immigration before it got shut down by a member uprising which only wanted more or less free immigration.

The first party I've voted for are the Moderate party (our pro-immigration republicans, basically, who's leader at that post was Fredrik Reinfeldt who in a speech urged the Swedish people, which has by far the most immigration per capita in Europe and takes more refugees per capita they Hillary has ever dreamed of, to "open their hearts" and accept more refugees. The 2nd is the libertarian party, who also wants us to have free immigration after abolishing the welfare state.

According to wikipedia you guys has ~1200 natives per refugee, we have 65 and voted for the guys that made it so. Granted I think they overdid it and had it poorly planned, but if Hillary tried to put her refugee limits in Sweden she'd be considered the worst racists in modern Swedish political history.

All that said I still think, horrible as he is, Donald would make a better president then Hillary and I also think he has a half decent shot to be president only because Hillary has so much baggage and looks like such a horrible candidate.

I also think that Europe might be ahead of America when it comes to the rise of anti-authority populism, often but not always right wing. We have the Pirate party that was founded in Sweden, spread and now is pretty big in some parts of Europe including (I think) being the biggest party on Island. We have UKIP that got a really big chunk of the votes in the last European election in the UK where the whole idea is to stick it to the "political class", the Five star movement in Italy is getting really big and in Sweden, probably the biggest pro immigration country in the industrialised world during the last 10 years or so, an anti-immigration party claiming to be "underdogs" and "outsiders" is getting around 20% in polls which makes them one of the three biggest parties and a sometime betting favourite to be the biggest in the next election. In France another successful populist party under Marine Le Pen wants to get French out of the EU and a bunch of other countries has issues like that. In short, populists parties has been on the rise for a long while.

Unless Hillary actually can come up with something new and fresh I can't back her as a big favourite, regardless of all the good reasons by which she is the betting favourite. I don't think I can come up with one single thing she has over other big favourites that has gotten destroyed by populists lately. Not saying Trump is gonna win or even that it's a good bet at these odds, but to me it for sure smells like a dog or pass at more then -300 and I'm not opposed to betting favourites in elections.

 

[kenCs]

Trump oozes charisma. At +350, Im smashing Trump to win.

 

[waiguoren]

Since some guy seemed to think that you have to like Donald to bet him I'd like to point out some of my political history.

Spoiler

Last election in Sweden I bet big at even money on "Feminist initiative" under 4.0%, which won.

I also bet big on a under line on "The Sweden democrats" which lost when they surged late (mostly in my opinion to the government radio looking super biased when they tried to claim that their leader was a gambling addict two days before the election on very loose grounds).

I bet big on the overs (both hit, but had juiced lines) on the Christian democrats and the Centre Party, both of which hit and both parties were included in the most pro immigration government in modern Swedish history, the latter's leadership famously supported totally free immigration before it got shut down by a member uprising which only wanted more or less free immigration.

The first party I've voted for are the Moderate party (our pro-immigration republicans, basically, who's leader at that post was Fredrik Reinfeldt who in a speech urged the Swedish people, which has by far the most immigration per capita in Europe and takes more refugees per capita they Hillary has ever dreamed of, to "open their hearts" and accept more refugees. The 2nd is the libertarian party, who also wants us to have free immigration after abolishing the welfare state.

According to wikipedia you guys has ~1200 natives per refugee, we have 65 and voted for the guys that made it so. Granted I think they overdid it and had it poorly planned, but if Hillary tried to put her refugee limits in Sweden she'd be considered the worst racists in modern Swedish political history.

All that said I still think, horrible as he is, Donald would make a better president then Hillary and I also think he has a half decent shot to be president only because Hillary has so much baggage and looks like such a horrible candidate.

I also think that Europe might be ahead of America when it comes to the rise of anti-authority populism, often but not always right wing. We have the Pirate party that was founded in Sweden, spread and now is pretty big in some parts of Europe including (I think) being the biggest party on Island. We have UKIP that got a really big chunk of the votes in the last European election in the UK where the whole idea is to stick it to the "political class", the Five star movement in Italy is getting really big and in Sweden, probably the biggest pro immigration country in the industrialised world during the last 10 years or so, an anti-immigration party claiming to be "underdogs" and "outsiders" is getting around 20% in polls which makes them one of the three biggest parties and a sometime betting favourite to be the biggest in the next election. In France another successful populist party under Marine Le Pen wants to get French out of the EU and a bunch of other countries has issues like that. In short, populists parties has been on the rise for a long while.

Unless Hillary actually can come up with something new and fresh I can't back her as a big favourite, regardless of all the good reasons by which she is the betting favourite. I don't think I can come up with one single thing she has over other big favourites that has gotten destroyed by populists lately. Not saying Trump is gonna win or even that it's a good bet at these odds, but to me it for sure smells like a dog or pass at more then -300 and I'm not opposed to betting favourites in elections.

Thanks for the insight. About immigration, refugees are onlyt a tiny part of the reason for Trump's support. Most of the immigration problems people see in their everyday lives are related to Mexico/Central/South American immigration. The USA has an estimated 11 million illegal immigrants living in its borders, most from those places. Does Sweden have anything comparable?

 

[waiguoren]

Trump oozes charisma. At +350, Im smashing Trump to win.

Sheesh, didn't know it had gotten that high.

 

[Slohog]

Thanks for the insight. About immigration, refugees are onlyt a tiny part of the reason for Trump's support. Most of the immigration problems people see in their everyday lives are related to Mexico/Central/South American immigration. The USA has an estimated 11 million illegal immigrants living in its borders, most from those these places. Does Sweden have anything comparable?

We have a population of around 10 million and 1.7 million of us are born outside of Sweden. Don't think we're close to your number of illegals but since we took in about 1% of our population in asylum seekers last year and wants to throw half of them out without any means of actually doing that I guess we're closing in, give us a year or two and we're there.

Our problem is not illegal immigrants thought, the problem is that it takes about seven years for half of the immigrants to find a job and support themselves. If we had your kind of immigration, people coming in and working (or "stealing jobs") we'd be fucking ecstatic with joy.

 

[waiguoren]

Our problem is not illegal immigrants thought, the problem is that it takes about seven years for half of the immigrants to find a job and support themselves.

Hm. Why?

 

[Jack Scrapper]

Not a lot of news-watchers itt.

GL with your Trump bets lol. Do a big favour, and give your very vewy bestest shot to try not putting words into my mouth. bunch of imbeciles.

 

[Slohog]

Hm. Why?

Socialism.

We give tons of benefits, we have very strong unions that "protect" workers rights so that no one can compete with low wages, our taxes on work are among the highest in the civilized world and it's been a lot of cases of working immigrants who's been here for many years lawfully and paying taxes getting thrown out due to technicalities.

Basically if you give incentive to work, people will work, and if you give incentive to sit on your ass, you'll sit on your ass. I could've told them that years ago, but apparently we're trying this for a few more years.

 

[UAK]

Socialism.

We give tons of benefits, we have very strong unions that "protect" workers rights so that no one can compete with low wages, our taxes on work are among the highest in the civilized world and it's been a lot of cases of working immigrants who's been here for many years lawfully and paying taxes getting thrown out due to technicalities.

Basically if you give incentive to work, people will work, and if you give incentive to sit on your ass, you'll sit on your ass. I could've told them that years ago, but apparently we're trying this for a few more years.

This is only the part of the reason. The unemployment among low educated ethnic swedes is also pretty high. The main issue is that the swedish economy is a very knowledge intense economy, whether you're immigrant or not if you don't have post education you're in deep shit nowadays. Even if the swedish government would decide to give all the incentive in the world for working it still wouldn't solve the problem. The problem is most immigrants don't have the skills required for a modern economy heck even a lot of swedes from rural Sweden don't even have the skills for a modern economy so even if we were to leave EU, stop immigration, get rid off taxes and welfare these people would still be unemployed. The factory jobs aren't coming back.

20 years ago the incentive argument would have made more sense when the difference between the average worker and the average unemployed person where rather small when you compared disposable income. People are given way less welfare and paying less taxes compared to the previous generation. The incentive argument is a weak argument today(I think even the popular anti-immigrant economist Tino Sanandaji even said that most unemployed are actually eager to work). There is a demand issue, we have a supply of low skilled workers with no demand for it.

I actually think paying a bit more in taxes to get free university education and healthcare is a good idea. There has been research that shows that it takes very high taxes before people actually prefer not working over working. That said I've actually voted for moderaterna every election but I'm definitely not a supporter of super low taxes libertarian society.

Anyway, let's not derail the thread anymore. Why even discuss who we are voting for or supporting. This only about bets none of my bets are endorsements. I hope nobody is betting on who they like instead of looking for value spots.

My Trump republican nominee bet cashed and I want to lay serious money on him but the more I look into this I'm starting think Trump has a huge demographic issue he can't overcome. I'm not an expert on US politics so I don't how the demographics looks like in the key states he needs to win. But on a national level isn't there only like 75% whites left in America and the guy is playing strong to the white vote. He's doing really bad with minorities and women. Unless whites overwhelmingly support trump(which is possible) it doesn't seem like he can win this election. Even with all the Hillary hate I think she will do well with women and miniorities.

At first I thought +300 was a gift. I've made decent money in the past betting on politically incorrect candidates because they get repeatedly underestimated in polls. I've bet and won money on Sweden Democrats twice in a row(2010, 2014). I bet on Brexit. I bet on Trump to win the republican nominee. Probably gonna lay a small bet on Trump to win unless someone can convince me to lay a serious bet on him.

 

[waiguoren]

This is only the part of the reason. The unemployment among low educated ethnic swedes is also pretty high. The main issue is that the swedish economy is a very knowledge intense economy, whether you're immigrant or not if you don't have post education you're in deep shit nowadays. Even if the swedish government would decide to give all the incentive in the world for working it still wouldn't solve the problem. The problem is most immigrants don't have the skills required for a modern economy heck even a lot of swedes from rural Sweden don't even have the skills for a modern economy so even if we were to leave EU, stop immigration, get rid off taxes and welfare these people would still be unemployed. The factory jobs aren't coming back.

20 years ago the incentive argument would have made more sense when the difference between the average worker and the average unemployed person where rather small when you compared disposable income. People are given way less welfare and paying less taxes compared to the previous generation. The incentive argument is a weak argument today(I think even the popular anti-immigrant economist Tino Sanandaji even said that most unemployed are actually eager to work). There is a demand issue, we have a supply of low skilled workers with no demand for it.

I actually think paying a bit more in taxes to get free university education and healthcare is a good idea. There has been research that shows that it takes very high taxes before people actually prefer not working over working. That said I've actually voted for moderaterna every election but I'm definitely not a supporter of super low taxes libertarian society.

Anyway, let's not derail the thread anymore. Why even discuss who we are voting for or supporting. This only about bets none of my bets are endorsements. I hope nobody is betting on who they like instead of looking for value spots.

My Trump republican nominee bet cashed and I want to lay serious money on him but the more I look into this I'm starting think Trump has a huge demographic issue he can't overcome. I'm not an expert on US politics so I don't how the demographics looks like in the key states he needs to win. But on a national level isn't there only like 75% whites left in America and the guy is playing strong to the white vote. He's doing really bad with minorities and women. Unless whites overwhelmingly support trump(which is possible) it doesn't seem like he can win this election. Even with all the Hillary hate I think she will do well with women and miniorities.

At first I thought +300 was a gift. I've made decent money in the past betting on politically incorrect candidates because they get repeatedly underestimated in polls. I've bet and won money on Sweden Democrats twice in a row(2010, 2014). I bet on Brexit. I bet on Trump to win the republican nominee. Probably gonna lay a small bet on Trump to win unless someone can convince me to lay a serious bet on him.

I enjoyed your post. Wouldn't worry too much about going off topic. At least you're being constructive.

Here are some of the reasons why I think a bet on Trump is justified.

• Whites are still over 70% of the US population and an even higher portion of the voting population. According to electionproject.org, whites made up 74% of the electorate in the 2012 presidential election. Note that this was the lowest percentage ever, partly because Obama was bringing out huge numbers of minority voters. Hillary Clinton will not inspire minorities the way that Obama did (though anti-Trump fervor might), and I expect white turnout to be higher in 2016.
  
• Trump has shown an ability to change the way people look at him. According to Harry "Trump is not a real candidate" Enten, Trump had a 57% percent unfavorable rating among Republicans in June 2015 when he announced his candidacy. But then he ended up with over 50% of the votes in the Republican primaries and caucuses. That's a massive shift.
• The media in the US is very left-leaning and very sensationalist. They have done an excellent job so far of painting Trump as a bigot/racist/misogynist. But at the end of the day, their main job is to bring the ratings. Trump does insane ratings and therefore gets a lot of free airtime. I think his numbers will start to shift shortly after he starts pushing a more inclusive message.
  
• Clinton is a tremendously weak candidate. 55% of Americans have an unfavorable view of her. Trump's number is 59%, but it moves more, indicating that people are still changing their minds about Trump. Clinton's number has been slowly creeping up since June 2015, and more leaked information regarding e-mails and donors is coming out all the time. Her server setup is the center of an FBI criminal investigation. This investigation has probably been going on for more than a year, though we can't know for sure. Americans trust the FBI, so if it finds that Clinton violated federal law, her candidacy will be over. I think there is a very good chance of this occurring.
  
• Trump had a bad few weeks in the media after the judge thing, and his national polling took a hit. But events like Orlando and Brexit help Trump a lot and I expect the new round of polls will show the race tightening again.
• Trump doesn't need to win the national popular vote to win the presidency. He only needs to win a few key swing states such as Florida, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Michigan. Trump's protectionist message will win many of these people over. Other than Florida, where much of Trump's support comes from old white retirees who love Trump, PA/OH/MI are former industrial and manufacturing states that have seen serious worker dislocation in the past few decades. Clinton has no way of winning a trade debate vs. Trump in these states as she was a vocal supporter of NAFTA and was involved in negotiating TPP.
• Breaking the electorate down by age, the elderly are set in their ways. They will turn out in high percentages and will not change their votes much from now to November. The youth are unreliable both in terms of turnout and preference. They usually only vote if they are very energetic about a candidate. But their preferred candidate, Bernie Sanders, will probably not be on the ballot in any capacity. Clinton needs these young voters, but young people don't like Clinton.
• Consider that Trump gave big money to the Clintons and the Clintons attended Trump's wedding. I believe Trump might have damning inside info about the Clintons that he could withhold until October/November. These wealthy people give money because they expect something in return. What did Trump want from the Clintons, and did they give it to him?

 

[Slohog]

Yea not gonna keep going with the non betting talk anymore and I agree with most of UAK's post, just wanted to point out that the statement "People are given way less welfare and paying less taxes compared to the previous generation" seems plain wrong (check out http://www.ekonomifakta.se/Fakta/Skatter/Skattetryck/Skattetrycket-historiskt/ for example).

With that I'll leave this topic until something actually happens with the odds.

 

[kenCs]

Watch Trump win by a lanslide. Kids are gonna study him for years to come. Imma smash Trump.

 

[UAK]

Yea not gonna keep going with the non betting talk anymore and I agree with most of UAK's post, just wanted to point out that the statement "People are given way less welfare and paying less taxes compared to the previous generation" seems plain wrong (check out http://www.ekonomifakta.se/Fakta/Skatter/Skattetryck/Skattetrycket-historiskt/ for example).

With that I'll leave this topic until something actually happens with the odds.

Not trying to be rude or anything but I am pretty sure you're wrong on this one.

According to your link "skattetrycket" was higher 1980, 1990, 1995, 2000 than it's today so I am not sure your link disproved my statement? In fact you need to go back all the way to the early 70s to find a lower tax share of GDP rate. 2015 is quite significantly lower than the 90s. Also just looking at the tax share of GDP to get an idea how much the average worker was paying in taxes is not the best measure.

Also nobody is going to agree with you that welfare today is as good or better than it was 90s or 80s. The infamous economist Tino Sanandaji said that the difference between unemployed and a full time worker was only around 25% in income but I can't remember which year he referred to but pretty sure it was 199x. I am not sure how much of the gap widening is due to the income tax cuts during 2006-2014 but I'm guessing a significant portion.

I wasn't old enough to pay taxes back in 90s but it's pretty common knowledge that if you were unemployed it was way better back then. It was even better to be student back then since the government wasn't even strict about regulating student grants, even if you missed the necessary credits you could still be approved student aid. A-kassan today is a lot less generous. In general the living standard for a person on welfare is lower than it was 20-30 years ago.

 

[Slohog]

It's been more or less the same for 30 years and before that it was a lot higher. I guess people who are about 35 paid slightly more for a bit, but any "generation" before that have paid less then then our generation ever will.

 

[waiguoren]

A couple more factors:

• 65% of Americans say the country is on the wrong track. Clinton is running as Obama's successor, while Trump is running as a change agent.
• In all polls, Trump consistently beats Clinton among independents. These are the people who decide elections, and many of them are still undecided. I believe Clinton will have a harder time convincing undecideds than Trump.

 

[edole]

A couple more factors:

• 65% of Americans say the country is on the wrong track. Clinton is running as Obama's successor, while Trump is running as a change agent.
• In all polls, Trump consistently beats Clinton among independents. These are the people who decide elections, and many of them are still undecided. I believe Clinton will have a harder time convincing undecideds than Trump.

I have a difficult time seeing any true independent who is still undecided on the election suddenly going, "she seems trustworthy. I'm with her."

I guess the same could be said for the Donald though.

Fascinating times.

In my perfect world, nobody shows up to the polls on election day. It would be the craziest political occurrence in this country ever. Wishful thinking.

 

[Bradillac]

Trump is free money.