Josh Shapiro has the best chance of becoming vice president, according to online gamblers

Who will Vice President Kamala Harris choose as her running mate? Online gamers think they have it figured out.

Harris, who secured enough state delegation endorsements on Monday to secure the Democratic nomination after President Joe Biden abruptly withdrew from the race, has not yet indicated who she will choose as her potential replacement.

Shortlists of potential candidates have been circulating for weeks, including a number of prominent Democratic governors and senators, with Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro emerging as the favorite in recent days.

Online betting markets have pegged Shapiro as one of Harris’ favorites — with users betting millions on whether he or another candidate, such as Kentucky Gov. Andy Bashear or Arizona Sen. Mark Kelly, will win her endorsement.

More than $16 million was poured into the election prediction platform Polymarket to bet on Harris’s vice presidential pick, a sign of the popularity of unregulated political gambling in an election cycle already marked by wild twists and turns.

“Betting on Shapiro is something I really love right now,” said KJ, a political gambler from Arizona who spoke on condition of anonymity because betting on election outcomes is illegal. “I think his odds are too low,” continued the 29-year-old, who said he placed a $500 bet on Shapiro’s odds Tuesday. “I think he’s the guy.”

From casino to smartphones

The flood of money for vice presidential predictions comes as the gaming industry shifts its focus from the casino to the smartphones of a younger and online gambler demographic. Election betting is illegal in the United States, although platforms like PredictIt and Polymarket have skirted the rules through academic loopholes or by operating offshore.

Earlier this week, Polymarket users were betting on Shapiro as the top vice presidential candidate; by Tuesday afternoon, the governor had fallen to second place behind Kelly, with users predicting Shapiro had a 21 percent chance of winning the nomination. PredictIt, which boasts more than 80,000 users, Until Tuesday, Shapiro was also leadingas Kelly moved forward.

” READ MORE: Governor Josh Shapiro will not confirm or deny that he is a candidate for vice president

PredictIt users can place bets ranging from a few cents to around a dollar on a variety of outcomes related to current events, such as whether former President Donald Trump will secure a second term or whether Biden will resign in the coming months. Other options take speculation to the extreme, such as one in 2020 that allowed users to bet on when the World Health Organization would declare the coronavirus outbreak a pandemic.

Bettors range from news readers to political buffs, and placing bets involves buying a “share” in a particular outcome that can be cashed out at any time. For example, Shapiro’s shares as vice presidential candidate were worth 21 cents on the Polymarket exchange As of late Tuesday afternoon, bettors had wagered more than $800,000 on the governor’s election.

KJ, a gambler from Arizona, said he discovered Polymarket in 2018 after he lost his job as a business analyst and started having a lot of free time. Since then, he’s spent thousands betting on the 2020 presidential election and the 2022 midterms, and is part of a 20-person Discord server that constantly discusses campaign events and candidates’ chances. He said he sees the industry’s growth as an extension of the sports betting craze that began when digital sports betting was legalized in the Sunbelt state in recent years.

“Biden is out, anything can happen at any time,” KJ said. “You have to be very well informed. … I know traders who spend seven, eight hours a day reading political news and trying to keep up with all the updates you see on Twitter.”

Discussion about election betting has moved from gaming platforms to social media, particularly Platform X, formerly Twitter, where breaking campaign news is delivered rapidly to users eager for results.

On Monday, Trump posted on his social media platform Truth Social a screenshot of Polymarket’s predictions, originally posted on an X account called “Interactive Polls.”

While Polymarket’s predictions are not considered traditional polls, Trump appeared to be emphasizing that the prediction platform favored him to win the presidential election over Harris by a margin of 64 to 29 — a result that is not reflected in national polls that have him within single digits of the presumptive Democratic nominee.

“Elections must be decided by voters”

The expansion of gambling culture from online sportsbooks like FanDuel to sites that allow users to bet on the outcome of Democratic elections has federal regulators racing to crack down on a market they say is vulnerable to manipulation and threatens the sanctity of elections.

“We are not election police,” said Steven Adamske, director of public relations for the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, the Washington-based agency that regulates such trading. “It opens up a Pandora’s box much larger than anyone can control — elections have to be decided by voters, not by people who come in and bet against them or for them.”

The Commission is involved in lawsuits with both PredictIt and Polymarket. The platforms are fighting the agency’s attempt to impose restrictions, although the threat of regulatory crackdowns has not stopped bookmaking. And in an important financial development for Polymarket, Conservative billionaire donor Peter Thiel recently helped raise about $70 million in funding for the platform.

KJ admitted that he does not place all bets with a clear conscience, including bets on people he believes are “extremely terrible for the country”, as well as controversial political brands such as the French National Assembly.

Meanwhile, in the UK, political betting has led to a scandal that has seen members of the Conservative Party and security service officers under investigation for using insider information to bet on the results of the last election on the initiative of former Prime Minister Rishi Sunak.

“It’s classic insider trading,” Adamske said. “People can argue, or at least complain, that the election was manipulated by someone who took an overly large position. [Betting platforms] give people the ability to cheat the system by allowing this type of gambling.”