Crypto gamblers have bet more than $592 million on the 2024 election

Users on popular crypto gambling platform Polymarket have wagered more than $592 million on predicting the outcome of the 2024 US presidential election, placing more bets on Donald Trump winning the race than Vice President Kamala Harris. Gamblers have already placed more than $74 million on the possibility of Donald Trump winning the presidency.

According to Polymarket betting, Trump has a 45 percent chance of winning this November’s election, while his opponent, Vice President Kamala Harris, has a 53 percent chance of winning, according to a live poll conducted on the betting platform.

Despite Harris’ comparatively higher odds on the prediction market platform, more cryptocurrency has been placed on Trump’s victory odds, with crypto enthusiasts spending just $64.8 million on Kamala Harris’ odds compared to more than $74.6 million on Trump’s odds, representing a difference of nearly $10 million.

Trump also participated in a live Twitter chat on Monday evening with Tesla CEO Elon Musk, now known as X, but made few references to the cryptocurrency. Despite Musk’s current presumed support for Trump, Musk has criticized Trump in the past, even voicing his support for Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton in a previous election. Moreover, Musk has tried to woo politicians of all stripes. In 2015, Musk attended a fundraiser for former President Barack Obama in San Francisco and personally toured SpaceX facilities for Obama as he pressed the government to invest in private sector space exploration.

Despite Polymarket’s early success in predicting President Joe Biden’s decision to drop out of the race, Polymarket recently failed to correctly predict Kamala Harris’ running mate, Tim Walz. Instead, the crypto universe was betting on Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro to take the position, with crypto gamblers betting that Shapiro had a greater than 60% chance of being elected.

In contrast, Polymarket users expected Walz’s odds to be lackluster, at one point betting just 4% on his odds. While crypto bettors picked up the slack and eventually placed 73% on Walz – the overall crypto prediction markets were relatively slow to expect a surprise win for Walz.