Kamala Harris has surged ahead of Donald Trump by nine points on the betting website Polymarket, but state and federal laws bar Americans from participating in the online platform’s online betting, raising questions as to who is placing bets, potentially totaling billions of dollars, on US elections.
Known as the “world’s largest prediction market,” Polymarket is an information market platform where speculators bet on real-world outcomes, from cultural topics to politics, providing insights on public sentiment. Polymarket is one of many tools that can help predict election outcomes, explained Chris Cooper, a political science professor at Western Carolina University.
“Lots of people, from political scientists to political strategists to political lobbyists, use Polymarket to try to understand what the market says about the election,” explained Cooper. “It is a type of market. And so, yes, it’s a very helpful tool to try to understand the possibilities and the probabilities of what’s going to happen. It has been increasingly viewed as a check on political polling, although it is clearly informed by polling.”
At nearly $600 million, the highest bets on the platform currently weigh the outcome of the US presidential election, with Kamala Harris sitting nine points ahead of Trump as of Wednesday. Basing trades off ever-changing public sentiment, speculators put Harris ahead of Trump for the first time last week.
Polls and Polymarket can be compared to see which is more predicative, but when it comes to extremely tight races, like the presidential race, Cooper said it is almost better to think about it in terms of competitiveness.
“Now Harris has pulled ahead of Trump; I would not take that as Harris will beat Trump,” said Cooper. “I would take that as this is an incredibly close race, and we don’t know what’s going to happen.”
Other high-dollar topics include the outcome of the popular vote, if Biden will finish his term, and how many times Trump will tweet this week.
However, the strong American focus on the platform is puzzling due to the fact that US laws prohibit Americans from betting on elections. In North Carolina, sports betting legislation passed in 2023 and became legal earlier this year, and conversations surrounding casinos remain ongoing. But despite the strides toward freer gambling in the state, a law remains in effect in North Carolina that says any person placing bets or wagers of any money or other thing of value on any election is guilty of a Class 2 Misdemeanor under General Statute 163-274 (a)(6).
Polymarket operates as an offshore betting platform and is not approved by the Commodity Futures Trading Commission. In 2022, the website was forced to pay a $1.4 million civil penalty in a legal settlement with the CFTC. While it is useful for people who want to understand current trends in American politics, the question is whether it comes with societal risks.
Americans have evidently figured out ways to get around the laws. On the chat platform Reddit, contributors show exactly how to circumvent US law in order to bet on Polymarket. A blog post is cited that teaches Americans how to sidestep current roadblocks in order to access the site for betting. The article says that US customers need a VPN to actually trade on the platform, and all users need a crypto wallet to deposit and make trades.
“I’m kinda shocked US citizens aren’t allowed to bet when they literally have bets on the 2024 US election,” one user wrote. “A lot of YouTubers making EC forecasts use this in their predictions as well. Polymarkets prediction is actually just what foreigners think, interesting.”
Not only are many national political topics up for bets on the website, but North Carolina is a focus of political bets as well. Some users have bet North Carolina will be a tipping point state in the 2024 election. Others make predictive bets on whether North Carolina will go for Harris or Trump, and whether Josh Stein or Mark Robinson will win the governor’s race. Notably across all the bets, the “Top Holders” tab reveals most of the users hide their identity with anonymous names.
Polymarket did not respond to a request for comment for this story.
The North Carolina State Board of Elections clarified in a statement to the Carolina Journal that state law makes it a crime for someone in North Carolina to bet on an election.
While the issue has not come up in the recent past, the State Board’s Investigations Division would open a case if it received a complaint about an alleged violation of election law. If an investigation found evidence to substantiate a violation and warrant a referral, it would be referred to the appropriate district attorney’s office for prosecutorial review. The DA’s office would determine whether to file charges, according to the Board.
“Given the popularity of online gambling and the possibility that some sites may provide opportunities to bet on elections, the State Board of Elections reminds North Carolinians that it is illegal to bet on elections in this state,” said Patrick Gannon, Public Information Director at the SBOE.
Other predictive betting platforms impacted by US election betting laws include PredictIt, Kalshi, and Intrade.
A spokesperson with the NC Education Lottery told the Carolina Journal that the North Carolina State Lottery Commission was only tasked with regulating sports wagering and pari-mutual horse race wagering under the sports wagering law approved by the NC General Assembly, adding that election betting is outside of the Commission’s purview.