US election updates: Trump pushes false claims of election fraud as J-Lo joins Harris on stage

Natalie Sherman
Business reporter from New York

As we just reported in the post below, polls say the presidential election is still too close to call, but Donald Trump has told the crowd he has the wind at his back.

His proof? The odds on betting sites, such as Polymarket, Kalshi and PredictIt, all of which heavily favor him to win.

Proponents of such sites see them as efficient markets, able to process new information quickly. Researchers say the track records of gambling markets stand up to scrutiny as well as other forecasting tools.

Skeptics note that the gamblers are somewhat of a self-selected group and have raised questions about the risk of market manipulation.

For example, at New York-based Polymarket, US citizens are technically excluded and bets are placed in cryptocurrency.

Fortune has reported that some analysts tracking Polymarket activity are seeing signs of wash trading – when the same people buy and sell repeatedly, creating an inflated sense of activity on the platform.

And while some sites have rules like limits on bet size, on Polymarket a few big bets can tilt the odds. This year, Polymarket said four accounts from a single French trader were responsible for moving the market.