2020 Election Betting Odds – Election Night Changes

It’s November 4, 2020, and the United States still hasn’t elected a new president yet. That’s because the votes are still being counted in the vast majority of states across the country. While news organizations have called a number of states in favor of either Donald Trump or Joe Biden already, nothing is final as of yet.

As was the case in 2016, we are likely dealing with an incredibly close race for the White House. Trump was able to stave off Hillary Clinton in a number of key swing states to successfully pull the upset four years ago. Trump was as low as a +400 underdog on Election Day 2016, but he was the unofficial president-elect before the end of Election Day that year.

However, if you have been on social media at any point within the past 12 hours or so, you are probably aware that betting markets have endured a wild ride since the votes started to get counted. Biden was around a -200 favorite at most betting sites for most of Election Day, but his path to his current -425/-435 number has not been a smooth one by any means whatsoever.

What happened with the political betting markets over the course of Election Night?

Constant Presidential Election Odds Fluctuations

To start things off, we wanted to show you how the odds changed throughout the night and into the early morning. Below, you’ll find a table that was updated during the election night to reflect the odds at election betting sites.

Biden’s Loss in Florida Shifted the Odds

This election was always supposed to be a win for Biden. All political betting sites agreed that the former vice president was a very solid bet to replace Trump in the Oval Office. BetOnline’s final pre-election odds had Biden at -210, which were even more favorable odds than he had seen in the days leading up to Tuesday:

Last posted Odds to win the Presidential Election:

Biden -210

Trump +180#ElectionDay

— BetOnline.ag (@betonline_ag) November 3, 2020

Polls in a number of states along the east coast closed between 7 and 8 pm Eastern. Early results from states like Florida, Georgia, North Carolina, and Ohio began to trickle in. Based on the path to 270 electoral votes, winning Florida was an absolute necessity for Trump. Without the Sunshine State’s 29 electoral votes, Trump didn’t have a realistic path to the threshold.

BetOnline and other political betting sites had Trump favored to win Florida before the vote count got underway. As you can see here, Trump was a pretty sizable -220 favorite to win his adopted home state as of 5:30 pm ET.

Electoral College Updated Odds ~ #ElectionDay

Arizona

Dem (-135)

Rep (+105)

Florida

Rep (-220)

Dem (+180)

Georgia

Rep (-180)

Dem (+150)

— BetOnline.ag (@betonline_ag) November 3, 2020

However, the odds started to trend in Trump’s direction after some results began to come in. The race in Florida was incredibly tight, as it usually is. Early numbers began to favor Trump, though, especially when it was discovered that Biden wasn’t faring nearly as well as Clinton did in South Florida. Trump eating into Biden’s advantage in the Democrat-heavy Miami area was likely enough to tip the state’s scales to the sitting president.

For some reason, this sent betting markets into a tailspin! Despite the fact that Florida hadn’t even been officially called for Trump yet, BetOnline’s odds to win the election shifted considerably. After starting the night as a -210 favorite, Biden’s chances slid all the way to -145. Trump, meanwhile, improved from +180 to +125.

Why did this happen?

Panic, probably. Trump garnered plenty of interest from bettors as a plus-money ‘dog leading into the election after pulling the upset of a lifetime four years ago. Public betting is what causes odds to shift more often than not. In this case, the public likely saw Trump faring better than many expected him to in Florida. So, bettors started to hammer Trump’s odds at an even higher rate than they had been in the lead-up to Election Night.

To try and offset their potential liability, oddsmakers shifted their odds to account for changes in public betting. So, BetOnline moved Biden from -210 to -145 after it looked like Trump was going to win Florida.

Live odds have shifted dramatically:

Updated odds:

Biden -145

Trump +125 https://t.co/5S9TqJZD4A

— BetOnline.ag (@betonline_ag) November 4, 2020

Ohio, Texas, Georgia, and North Carolina Tipped the Scales Even Further

Trump’s win in Florida pushed the odds in his favor, but Biden was still a minus-money favorite. The dumbest part of the dramatic shift in odds was that Trump winning Florida was expected at the betting sites. Despite the result going exactly the way the sites thought it would, bettors still insisted on hammering Trump at plus-money.

Democrats identified Georgia, Texas, Ohio, and North Carolina as legitimate toss-ups heading into the election. All four states went for Trump in ’16, and BetOnline’s odds favored POTUS to keep them red. As of 8:30 ET, Trump was at -180 in North Carolina, -300 in Ohio, -700 in Texas, and -350 in Georgia.

Again, Biden didn’t have to win any of these states in order to win the general election. Frankly, winning any of them would have just been icing on the cake. They were must-win states for Trump’s chances, and he was favored accordingly. That didn’t stop bettors, of course, who continued to bet on Trump and plunge betting markets into further chaos.

Once Ohio and Texas started to look like locks for Trump, Biden’s general election odds at BetOnline.ag slid to -130. A short time later, Biden dipped to -115, with Trump improving to -105. By 9:30 ET, about an hour after Biden was still at -145 to win, Trump became the favorite. The incumbent moved to -145 to win the election after winning Texas and Ohio, with other swing states looking more competitive than many had anticipated. Biden, meanwhile, went down to +125.

After That, Pure Chaos Ensued

As more and more results started to come in, Trump’s odds continued to improve. He didn’t stop at -145. Not by a long shot.

About five minutes after moving to -145, Trump moved again to -175. Shortly thereafter, Trump moved again to -260. Polls began to close on the west coast. While the western US is largely blue, Trump’s odds to win Arizona inexplicably improved. Trump carried Arizona in 2016, but Democrats were optimistic about the Grand Canyon State’s chances of flipping.

Trump is apparently a second half team again in 2020, starting to run up the score

Live odds to win the election:

Biden +300

Trump -400#ElectionNight https://t.co/JUnUkV0byI

— BetOnline.ag (@betonline_ag) November 4, 2020

Trump then moved to -250 at BetOnline to win the general. Then -300. Then -400. Some international bookmakers moved Trump all the way to -700 to win, with Biden attracting very little interest from the general public.

Arizona Changed Things

Biden was a -130 favorite to win Arizona on Tuesday afternoon. By about 10 pm ET, Trump jumped out as a -250 favorite there. Why? Other than public betting optimism exploding around Trump, there was no explanation. The first batch of results from Arizona heavily favored Biden, with the former vice president carrying coveted Maricopa County by about 10 percentage points in the early tabulations.

To this point in the night, neither candidate had successfully flipped any state won by their opponent in 2016. Arizona represented the first legitimate opportunity with Biden holding that early lead. While several outlets had the race as “too close to call” at that point, Fox News (of all outlets) went ahead and called the race in Arizona for Biden.

This sent Trump’s campaign into a tizzy. It also caused a dramatic shift in the betting markets. After Fox colored Arizona blue, Biden’s odds bounced back a bit:

Trump has been playing the Cowboys defense in the 4th quarter and it isn’t helping him

Live odds to win the election:

Biden +150

Trump -170#ElectionNight https://t.co/Xq39r0VW7f

— BetOnline.ag (@betonline_ag) November 4, 2020

BetOnline continued to improve Biden’s chances as the Arizona results continued to roll in. By around 2:00 am, the Democrat had once again emerged as a -170 favorite thanks in large part to potentially adding Arizona’s 11 electoral votes to his ledger.

Remember Georgia?

Georgia was thought to be a battleground heading into this election. Early results seemed to favor Trump, though, and Georgia’s potential to stay red played a huge role in the odds turning dramatically in favor of the president on Tuesday night.

However, this is an election like no other. With so many Americans casting ballots by mail, it was always going to take longer to count them all. There’s a reason no news outlets called Georgia in Trump’s favor on Tuesday despite his early lead. A lot of the votes were still uncounted, especially in major urban areas like Atlanta that tend to skew hard in favor of Democrats.

Trump built himself a big lead in the Peach State, but the results in Georgia are still very much in doubt. With so much of the yet-to-be-counted votes set to come from cities, Trump’s lead there seems to be very tenuous. According to the New York Times, Georgia’s 16 electoral votes may even be tilting in favor of Biden:

Biden’s Midwestern Surge

Before the election, many believed the election would come down to a few Midwestern states that swung from blue to red in 2016. Michigan, Wisconsin, and Pennsylvania were all traditionally blue states that went for Trump four years ago. Well, based on the way the rest of the electoral map seems to be playing out, those prognosticators are looking pretty smart right now.

Trump held early Election Night leads in each of those three states, but most of the votes counted on Tuesday night were of the same-day variety. All three states couldn’t start counting mail-in ballots until Tuesday, which means the full results were always going to be delayed. Because mail-in voting numbers tend to favor Democrats, many expected Biden to continue to eat away at a potential early Trump lead.

Donald Trump’s path to reelection has narrowed significantly after Joe Biden flipped Arizona on Wednesday and pulled into the lead in Wisconsin and Michigan https://t.co/LIithXre5S

— POLITICO (@politico) November 4, 2020

That’s exactly what’s happening, and the odds have shifted massively in Biden’s favor. As of this writing, Biden holds a lead of about 20,000 votes in Wisconsin. State officials appear set to call the race for Biden, which means he’ll add 10 electoral votes Clinton missed out on four years ago. In 2016, Trump won Wisconsin by about 22,000 votes, so the margins are similar.

Biden also holds a lead of about 34,000 votes and counting in Michigan, a state Trump won by just 10,000 votes in 2016.

Biden Back In The Driver’s Seat

With results continuing to come in in those aforementioned swing states, Biden’s chances of winning the election are looking better than ever. Betfair, which has been keeping tabs on the developments all night long, has Biden at -500 as of this writing. That gives him an 81.5 percent chance of being named the 46th president.

As of 10:00 last night, Betfair had Biden with just a 25.8 percent chance. For no legitimate reason whatsoever, early results that favored Trump caused bettors to go crazy. Betting markets shifted accordingly, but Biden is now more heavily-favored than he has ever been at any point in the entire election cycle.

Is Biden out of the woods yet? Of course not. Votes are still being counted, and the margins are incredibly close in this election. However, the current electoral math indicates that Trump is facing an uphill battle to win re-election, which is exactly what most people expected by the time polls started to close on Tuesday night.

Latest #Election2020 Odds (10:40 am est):

Trump +355

Biden -435 https://t.co/y2dm9SpJeo

— BetOnline.ag (@betonline_ag) November 4, 2020

The order in which votes are counted does not matter. Because all the votes will eventually be counted one way or the other, reacting to certain swings over the course of Election Night can be a fool’s errand for bettors. Once the dust has finally settled, there are sure to be thousands of wagerers out there that will ultimately regret jumping to too many early conclusions based on incomplete results.