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The Finance Base
2024 presidential election

Why Polymarket’s 2024 Election Odds Surged for Trump

Polymarket’s Trump odds climbed in October 2024, but market prices were not polls. Here’s how the odds worked, why large bets drew scrutiny, and what the resolved market can tell us.

By TheFinanceBase Team 3 min read
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Polymarket’s odds for Donald Trump rose from 56.7% on Oct. 15, 2024, to 61.5% on Oct. 21. Those were dated prices in a market betting on the presidential winner—not poll results or estimates of the share of voters supporting either candidate. The market later resolved to Trump, but that outcome does not establish why the odds moved or prove that the market represented voters’ views.

What changed in Polymarket’s odds?

In its Oct. 15, 2024 newsletter, Polymarket reported Trump at 56.7% and Kamala Harris at 43%. Six days later, its Oct. 21 newsletter reported Trump at 61.5%. These snapshots show a change in the market’s pricing over time, not a change in measured voter support. Polymarket’s Oct. 15 newsletter and its Oct. 21 newsletter provide the dated figures.

Polymarket’s later retrospective says Trump was priced above 50% for 194 days, compared with 111 days when a Democratic candidate was ahead. Those counts describe the platform’s market history; they are not measures of how many days voters preferred each candidate. Polymarket’s retrospective also examines a separate popular-vote market, which produced a different picture.

What do Polymarket odds mean?

Polymarket describes an outcome-share price as an implied probability. Traders buy and sell shares tied to a possible outcome, and the price changes with market demand. On the 2024 winner market, a correct “Yes” share paid $1 and an incorrect one paid $0. A share priced at 60 cents can therefore be read as an implied probability of about 60% within that market, subject to its trading conditions and rules—not as a guarantee that the outcome will happen. The market page sets out the price and payout framework; Axios’s Oct. 25, 2024 explanation describes how demand and the eventual payout relate to a share’s price.

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Are betting odds the same as polls?

No. A poll records responses from surveyed people using a survey method; a prediction market price reflects the buying and selling of outcome shares under its rules. Neither number should be substituted for the other: a market-implied probability is not the percentage of voters backing a candidate, and a poll is not a market price.

Contemporary coverage also showed that market and model estimates could diverge. Axios reported a Wednesday-afternoon comparison of Polymarket at 59.3% and FiveThirtyEight at 51%. That is a comparison reported in Axios’s Oct. 25, 2024 article, not a precisely synchronized audit of both methods or proof that either number was more accurate in general.

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Could large bets have driven Trump’s lead?

Large wagers can have an outsized effect when a market has too few participants or too little trading to absorb them, Axios reported. Brad Allen, senior analyst at Eilers & Krejcik Gaming, told Axios: “These markets can be moved by big money, and that big money is not necessarily making bets based on who they think is actually going to win the election.” Polymarket’s Oct. 21 newsletter also discussed scrutiny of large traders.

This supports treating trader concentration as a concern, not as proof that anyone manipulated the 2024 election market. The available accounts do not provide a definitive breakdown of what caused each movement, establish that a trader intentionally manipulated prices, or show that Polymarket’s odds represented US voters. Polymarket’s current US Trust & Safety Hub lists market manipulation as prohibited conduct, but that policy applies to the current US platform and does not establish what happened in the international 2024 market. Polymarket US Trust & Safety Hub

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How accurate was the market?

The answer depends on the exact question being judged. Polymarket’s 2024 market asked who would win the presidency; its page resolved the winner as Trump. That result does not mean every related market call was right. In a separate market about the popular vote, Polymarket’s retrospective reports Trump averaged a 32% probability of winning and was above 50% for only a five-day stretch. A winner market and a popular-vote market concern different outcomes, so the result of one cannot stand in for the other.

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What happened to the 2024 market?

The presidential-winner market is resolved and no longer open for trading. Polymarket’s page reports Trump as the final winner at 100%; it says resolution relied on calls from the Associated Press, Fox News, and NBC, with the listed inauguration outcome as a contingency. The platform also reports $3.7 billion in trading volume since the market launched on Jan. 4, 2024. That is Polymarket’s own reported volume, not an independently audited measure or proof that its prices were representative of the electorate. Polymarket’s resolved market page

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