US Presidential Race - Political Betting Heats Up - 02-16-08

February 16 -  Futures betting is immensely popular and nice more so than on political events. Online sports books report that political betting is no bigger than ever, thanks to the US presidential race.

Numerous inputs are considered in the handicapping of political events. Many factors can be considered in predicting the outcome of political events such as the Presidential primaries, polls and experts opinion. However, these have not been the mort reliable in this race, with many predictions proven to be incorrect thus far. But the odds set by bookmakers in futures betting these days are considered to be one of the most accurate prediction tools.  After all, thee is a lot of money at stake.

Political betting is now a multimillion dollar industry for land based an online sportsbooks all over the world. Rough estimates are that over $50 million has been wagered on the US Presidential race to date. Offshore sportsbooks have futures markets on the Republican and Democratic candidate races as well as the race for the Whitehouse.  According to the bookmakers, Barack Obama looks to be clear  favorite to win the remaining Democratic primaries in favor of  Hillary Clinton.

Obama is also the betting choice to win the White House. Bodoglife.com has Obama at 1.71 to be the next President, with Clinton at 5 and John McCain at 2.71. Sportsbook.com has Obama at 1-3 to be the next president with Clinton at 2-1/  likelihood of winning the nomination; he is viewed as a 50% choice to be President, with McCain at 34% and Clinton 17%.

The question is, do handicappers know more about the outcome of political events that political experts? That might just be the case with so much money involved.