What is political betting and how is It different from sports betting?

27th July 2020

The global pandemic has forced people to stay at home and mainly do their activities indoors or online. Unfortunately, the pandemic has also become the reason why even the majority of the world of sports had to take a break. The month of March has always been a fruitful time of the year for sports betting enthusiasts because this is when sports events like the EPL, March Madness and many other tournaments take place at the same time.

For sure, the lack of sports events has bored many people and has affected the businesses of betting operators. However, some of these operators still made sure that they have odds to offer their customers even if it was something that’s not related to sports. This is when political betting started to gain more popularity.

Political betting isn’t entirely different from sports betting. Transitioning to this kind of betting should not be a hassle and a problem if you’re used to betting on sports. If you don’t have much knowledge of sports betting Silentbet wiki have the sources to explain safe betting.

Now, political betting isn’t exactly new. It just really gained more attention since the lockdown period because of the scarcity of sports events. People who are fond of sports betting had to find something else during that time. It’s either they start playing online casino games or bet on whatever it is that bookies were still offering during that time.

Political betting enables you to wager on events that concern politics. You wager on the next president of the United States, the next Prime Minister of the UK, the next Mayor of specific cities, and even the next governor of states in the US.

There are also odds on other political events that may seem quite a novelty for some. During the lockdown period, there were odds offered on how many times President Donald Trump would say the word COVID in his speech.

You may also start wondering whether this is legal and it is completely legal in European countries.  The UK has allowed bets on political events since the 1960s. Meanwhile, the US doesn’t really have any laws against it and so this is still in the gray area. However, US locals can still place their politics bets on bookies located offshore.

The popularity of political betting just really hasn’t gained much clout among lawmakers in the US just yet. At most, governments in the US fear that election manipulation could happen if this becomes popular, but political betting in the UK is successful.

As mentioned earlier, if you’re someone who is thinking about betting politics, this won’t be tough if you are an experienced sports bettor. Politics and Sports betting have the same type of odds. You would encounter decimal and fractional codes when you visit bookies online. Just know that it is typically the European bookies that use decimal odds. Fractional odds are mainly used in the UK.

You will also get to see the same value of bets offered for both politics and sports betting. The types of gambling you can encounter in politics betting also include Moneylines, totals, futures, and even prop bets.

When it comes to popularity, sports betting remains to be more popular, but experts believe that political betting will also be on the rise in the next few years. It may start getting more clout as the US election approaches.

The head of politics betting at Ladbrokes Coral Group Matthew Shaddick spoke about this and said that nothing compares to the politics in the US. Shaddick explained, “The Trump election was huge. In general, presidential elections are a nice binary option—in European elections, you’ve got complicated parliamentary processes. But Trump is such a well-known and controversial figure. The 2020 U.S. general election will no doubt be the next big thing. It’s clear to me from all the money we’re taking in that it will break all the records.”

He continued, “It’s going to continue growing. The fact that sports are shut down, the fact that they’re not going to have the Olympics, there’s no doubt the U.S. election will be the biggest market we trade here.”

While there are bookies that have reported a rise in political betting activity during the lockdown period, we remain curious about how this sector will do in the next few months. Major and minor sports events are now starting to come back and for now, it’s still hard to tell whether politics betting will continue to significantly grow in the next few months.