A British gambler is hoping to prove US election pundits wrong after placing a $5m (£3.9m) bet at odds of 37/20 on Donald Trump winning the presidential race.
As US voters go the polls today, The Sun reports that the unnamed “fluttering financier” placed his big-bucks wager with a private bookmaker on the Caribbean island of Curacao after speaking to “Trump camp insiders”. A betting industry source told the newspaper that “word of this bet has done the rounds and we think it’s the biggest ever made on politics”.
Speculation is growing about the identity of the mystery businessman, who is reported to be a “rich former banker who is based offshore”. Whoever he is, the high-stakes gambler “could walk away with almost $15m” (£11.6m) if his “hunch is successful”, says the Daily Mail.
The Week
Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.
Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
Another mystery punter is hoping that won’t be the case, after betting £1m on Joe Biden to win the election, according to British bookmaker Betfair Exchange. If the Democratic challenger secures the keys to the White House, the UK-based gambler will take home £1.4m.
Biden remains favourite to win the election, but bookmakers say there has been a late flurry of bets on Trump.
Ladbrokes reports that over the past week, three in four of all bets were for the Republican to secure a second term. A spokesperson for the betting giant said that although “Biden looks home and hosed, even at the eleventh hour punters are continuing to back Trump at the odds on offer”.
That pattern is being repeated over at Paddy Power, with 93% of the money bet on the election over the last day backing a Trump victory.
-
Why is the Pentagon taking over the military’s independent newspaper?Today’s Big Question Stars and Stripes is published by the Defense Department but is editorially independent
-
How Mars influences Earth’s climateThe explainer A pull in the right direction
-
‘The science is clear’Instant Opinion Opinion, comment and editorials of the day
-
Trump’s Greenland ambitions push NATO to the edgeTalking Points The military alliance is facing its worst-ever crisis
-
Venezuela: Does Trump have a plan?Feature Oil and democracy are both on the table
-
Trump ties Greenland threat to failed Nobel Peace bidSpeed Read ‘I no longer feel an obligation to think purely of Peace,’ Trump said
-
The Board of Peace: Donald Trump’s ‘alternative to the UN’The Explainer Body set up to oversee reconstruction of Gaza could have broader mandate to mediate other conflicts and create a ‘US-dominated alternative to the UN’
-
Can Starmer continue to walk the Trump tightrope?Today's Big Question PM condemns US tariff threat but is less confrontational than some European allies
-
A new serif in town: Trump’s font culture warIn the Spotlight As the State Department shifts from Calibri to Times New Roman, is this just a ‘typographic dispute’, or the ‘latest battleground’ of a culture war
-
Trump threatens Minnesota with Insurrection ActSpeed Read The law was passed in 1807 but has rarely been used
-
The high street: Britain’s next political battleground?In the Spotlight Mass closure of shops and influx of organised crime are fuelling voter anger, and offer an opening for Reform UK
