Sports betting has exploded in recent years, but at the same time another "sport" has seen massive growth in wagering. Election betting is now a huge industry, with websites like PredictIt devoted to posting odds and taking bets on various electoral races. This has the attention of the federal government, as the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) is now looking to crackdown on the industry and potentially ban election betting altogether.
Critics warn that unfettered betting on elections increases the risk of election fraud or manipulation of races by big-money gambling interests, but defenders point out it's no different than the billions in big money that already flows into politics via advertising. Robert Stein, political science professor at Rice University, says aside from the dirty-money aspect, there is another reason some people are nervous about this phenomenon. "I think people take the betting markets more seriously than the New York Times or other public opinion polling outlets," he tells KTRH. "And that means they can sway people...particularly, they can convince people that their candidate may or may not win an election, and that could suppress voter turnout."
On the positive side, Stein and other political pundits now rely on betting odds and numbers to gauge races in a way they couldn't before. "It's a very useful tool," says Stein. "And as an academic I always follow the betting markets very carefully, particularly for the non-presidential races in off years, where these people are very informed bettors...they know a lot about the election."
Stein believes that, like sports betting, there will be more regulation of political betting in the future. But he does not predict an outright ban. "The government may try to regulate it, but they'll never stop it," he says. "I think the fact that politicians have raised alarms (about election betting) is because they find it's something they can't control."