USA Political Betting Guide For 2024
In America, people love to bet on sports – and there’s arguably no greater, more pervasive “sport” than politics. As such, it only makes sense that the best online USA sportsbooks would offer US politics betting odds. Of course, you can only bet on political races at offshore bookmakers, as no domestic state-regulated sportsbooks currently offer election or candidate betting lines.
Fortunately, there are plenty of top-quality election betting options out there, and we’ve picked out the most reputable books that accept US bettors. Whether you’re looking for general political lines, 2024 Presidential Election odds, or if you just want to wager on Trump or Harris props, you can lay your money down legally and safely at the books we recommend.
Best Online Sportsbook Offering USA Political Betting Odds In 2024
Bovada is the most popular election betting website in America, with millions of users participating in election betting at the offshore bookmaker. Because the site operates from within an international gaming jurisdiction, US members are allowed to bet on politics at Bovada legally.
Bovada spotsbook offers odds on everything you can imagine including local elections as well as futures that include prospective candidates that have yet to announce their intention to run.
If you’re looking for where to bet on elections in the United States, Bovada offers the best ballot on the Internet!
New players can claim a huge 50% first deposit bonus up to $1,000 free.
Top US Online Sportsbooks To Bet On Politics And Elections In 2024
| Site Name | Current Bonus | Rating /5 | U.S. | Visit Site | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 |  | 50% Max $1,000 | 4.9 |  | Visit Site Review |
| 2 |  | 50% Max $1,000 | 4.5 | | Visit Site Review |
| 3 |  | 50% Max $250 | 4.3 | | Visit Site Review |
| 4 |  | 100% Max $2,500 | 4.2 | | Visit Site Review |
| 5 |  | 25% Max $500 | 4.2 | | Visit Site Review |
| 6 |  | 50% Max $200 | 4.2 | | Visit Site Review |
| 7 |  | 50% Max $500 | 4.1 | | Visit Site Review |
Is It Legal To Bet On Elections In The United States In 2024?
Political betting laws are basically nonexistent at domestic US venues and state-licensed sportsbooks. However, political wagering is frowned upon by all state gaming commissions, and it is not available at local betting lounges or state-regulated online betting sites. In the future, that might change, but for now, politicians seem reticent to “belittle” their office by letting the citizenry vote with their wallets.
Fortunately, US election betting is legal under current sports betting laws if you use an offshore betting site. To find the best election betting market for your needs, you can browse the boards at the reputable online sportsbooks featured here. Each will have different odds for every candidate, so you’ll definitely want to shop lines to find the best values on Presidential candidate odds.
How To Bet On Election Odds Online
If you’re wondering how to bet on presidential election odds or other major US political races, it’s pretty easy: Simply find a top-rated online sportsbook, sign up, deposit, and bet. Remember, election wagering is only available at online betting sites, as domestic books don’t offer political betting.
We recommend only using the sites listed here, as they’re each established in the industry and have solid reputations for fair lines, excellent customer service, and guaranteed payouts. Read our lips: No new sportsbooks! Stick with the tried and true, or you’ll be black and blue (and in the red).
2024 Presidential Candidates | |
Republican Party | Democratic Party |
| Donald Trump: Former 45th President of the United States VP: JD Vance – US Senator (OH) | Kamala Harris: Current Vice President and Senate President VP: Tim Walz – MN Governor |
Presidential Election Betting
If you want to bet on POTUS election odds, you have a number of sites to choose from, the best of which are listed on this page. To put your money where your morals and ethics are, simply sign up at any of these sites, make a deposit, and submit your vote!
The best Presidential election betting sites are all safe, secure, and legal to use for US players, and you can be confident that your selections will be honored and your payouts guaranteed. If only we could have so much faith in our politicians!
Betting On US House And Senate Midterm Odds
All the top sites also offer Congressional betting odds, though you are unlikely to find comprehensive coverage of all races, as there are simply too many of them to include the full menu. Nevertheless, you will get several House and Senate lines during each cycle.
US House Of Representatives Odds
You can expect to find House odds for 15-30 races during a given general election cycle or midterm election, even though every seat is up for grabs.
The House incumbent retention rate is over 90%, making most races a foregone conclusion for bettors and books alike. The remaining interesting or close races will usually have lines posted.
US Senate Odds
There are far fewer Senate races than House races during most election cycles, as the upper chamber is smaller than the lower.
That said, you’ll still only find 5-10 contested races that are popular enough for inclusion at offshore betting sites, as the incumbent retention rate in the Senate mirrors that of the House at over 90%.
2024 Gubernatorial Betting
Betting on governorships in the US is commonplace, though as with Congressional election odds, there are typically only a few races close enough to merit inclusion on the boards. However, whenever a gubernatorial race is contentious or scandalous or just plain close enough, you’ll be able to bet on it online.
Types Of Political Bets You Can Find Online
There are several political betting types you can find at online sportsbooks, and most of these will be familiar to anyone who’s bet on sports in the past. Generally speaking, most political bets are futures bets – that is, you’re picking a winner a long way out from the election in question.
Of course, there are also tons of political props to choose from, and you can put money on things like which candidate will win the most electoral votes, which one will win the popular vote, which candidate will win each state, and so on. Political prop bets are also available for events such as debates, scandals, and fundraisers.
Additionally, you can sometimes make “political point spread” bets where you can wager on a given candidate’s margin of victory. Each sportsbook will have a unique selection of government betting lines, so you should definitely shop around to find the best ones.
Political Betting Strategies
If you’re looking for how to bet on politics, we’ve already shown you the best Internet betting sites to do so. However, there are other factors you need to consider if you want to make the best bets possible, and these are a few pointers to help you pick a winner:
- Know the House majority – Often, the executive branch of government will diverge from the House majority. A Presidential administration rarely controls both chambers of Congress, and the House flips between Democratic and Republican majorities more often than the Senate. If a President is elected and loses the House, this can indicate a tougher path to re-election.
- Know the Senate majority – As with the house, the Senate flips from Dem to Rep control occasionally. Historically, a party majority in the Senate bodes well for a Presidential incumbent of the same party, but this is not always the rule.
- Understand the electoral college – America is a democratic republic, not a pure democracy. The popular vote does not determine who wins the Presidential election – only the electoral college does. (That said, the popular vote does determine who wins other federal and in-state elections.)
- Research state political makeup – A state’s political makeup – that is, the Dem and GOP numbers in its statehouse and governors’ office – often determines how the general population is going to vote in a national or Presidential election. In particular, whatever party a state’s current governor represents usually indicates which party they’ll vote for in the Presidential race.
- Weigh the incumbent – Incumbents almost always win their races. In the US House of Representatives and US Senate, incumbents win their seats over 90% of the time. For Presidential elections, the rate is slightly lower, though it is historically over 80%. In the last 100 years, only five Presidents have lost their re-election bids.
- Ignore Twitter – This is self-explanatory, but for the uninitiated, heed the warning: While Twitter has become an important political tool for politicians in the US, it is largely an echo chamber. If you lean left, Twitter will make you think Democrats will win every election in a landslide. If you lean right, Twitter will make you think Republicans are in full control.
Frequently Asked Questions
This isn’t just true on the Democrat side, but since they have the largest field for 2022, most bettors will focus in on the fact that the odds boards and the nationwide media polls don’t seem to be in agreement. This is especially true for non-frontrunners, though you’ll notice it across the spectrum. As for why this happens, polls can be misleading or biased in both their administration and their responses.
Betting boards, on the other hand, show you exactly where “respondents” are spending their money. As political betting becomes more mainstream going forward, you should expect these odds to have far more influence on how candidate polling is established.
Yes! While it is most common for gamblers to bet on political races, there are also tons of other kinds of political betting odds to choose from. During major election cycles, you can wager on all the following – and more! – at most top betting sites:
- Democrat primary odds
- Republican primary odds
- Democratic debate odds
- Republican debate odds
- Presidential impeachment odds
- Presidential resignation odds
- Vice President selection odds
- Supreme Court appointee odds
- Legislative bill odds
Usually, sportsbooks will only cover the federal election betting market (with the exception of tight governor’s races). This is because there is far more bettor familiarity with US Presidency, House, and Senate races than there is with local elections and the tens of thousands of politicians that populate them.
In the future, when local domestic sportsbooks are widespread in the US and political betting is allowed at such venues, you will likely see state congress, mayoral, and city council races represented, at least in larger cities.
You can’t actually find Las Vegas odds on presidential candidates for either party, as Nevada doesn’t allow political betting. That means that anything advertised as Vegas odds on 2024 election action (or any other election) is actually gleaned from “hypothetical” lines or offshore betting sites. Remember, if you live in the US, you can only wager on elections and politics via overseas sportsbook operators.
When you search for Trump election odds, you will come across two different metrics to consider: betting odds and polling numbers. Betting odds do not reflect Trump’s chances to with the Presidency in 2024. Instead, these odds simply reflect what the betting public thinks will happen.
Polling data purports to show Trump’s actual statistical chances to win, though that is also an imperfect assessment, and many voters and analysts believe that betting odds are a better overall way to gauge any candidate’s real winning potential. Smart campaigns are now using political betting markets to plan their campaign and advertising strategies.
There is much to be gained from studying history, and bettors would do well to heed recent elections (and their implied historical trends) when wagering on political races. The 2020 election betting odds, for example, were affected at the House and Senate levels due to Trump’s win in 2016.
Meanwhile, the GOP 2016 odds were informative in their own right, as new factors emerged that allowed a popular outsider candidate to win the most powerful political seat in the world. Thus, the rules for 2020 might be different than ever before, though lessons from these recent campaigns are a good watermark for what to expect in the current cycle.
In the US, the Presidency almost always attracts betting odds. For example, from the moment Donald Trump was elected President in 2016, most online sportsbooks offered futures odds for his chances of re-election in 2020. As with all sports futures, Presidential election odds are usually available year-round, whether it’s an election year, a midterm year, or any time in between.
Yes! While these are less popular markets for US gamblers, you can often wager on Canadian election odds and participate in European politics betting. UK betting odds, Australian politics betting, and even more obscure markets like India political betting are commonly available at most top sites during certain popular election cycles, too.
Live betting is geared toward mobile sports betting and would be difficult for most books to implement for politics. To date, no reputable sportsbook has attempted to do so. However, when you bet on 2020 election results during the actual election itself, sportsbooks may offer live lines as states’ polls close and the electoral votes and winners in each region are announced. In the future, live betting during elections should become a desirable feature for US bettors.