Trump Billy Bush Arianne Zucker

I wanted to wait until after the second Presidential debate to do an odds update, but in light of what occurred this weekend, it is imperative that I update my readers now.  Two things happened: one, Wikileaks released a series of transcripts Hillary Clinton gave at paid speeches, notably to Wall Street banks, and two, a video was released from 2005, with both video and audio of a private conversation between Trump and Billy Bush, a TV host, discussing Trump’s interactions with women as a result of being a celebrity.  Given the timing of the Wikileaks release, I initially presumed that the video was leaked to push that story out of the headlines, but I had no idea that the impact of either one could be so important to the oddsmakers.

Unsurprisingly, the election odds were on the move, but I had no idea the move could be this significant.  A lot of the release amounts to what I believe were already well known facts about both candidates, but the impact on the odds was obviously very lopsided.  In light of the significance of the odds being repriced, it is time to revisit Betfair, ahead of the second debate, and see how the odds have moved as a result of the leaks.

As of 10/8/2016, 3:17 PM Eastern, the odds were as seen below:

10-8-16-odds

Again, I’ll put the numbers in percentage terms of chance to win the election, to simplify.  All percentages are approximates, with priors coming from odds at 9/28/2016 at 11:26AM Eastern:

  • Hillary Clinton:  78.4%  (prior: 68.0%)
  • Donald Trump:  17.5%  (prior: 30.3%)
  • Mike Pence:  1.25%  (prior: below 0.1%)

After looking at the new odds, I asked myself the question: in light of the leaks and leaked video released last night, does Trump still have a chance to win the election?  Below are my observations:

Continue reading “Pre 2nd Debate Video Leak Odds Update”