How Gamblers are Betting on Palin's Move

The news of Sarah Palin's resignation reached gamblers while they were mired in holiday traffic, vacationing in cabins without internet access, or at the shore with children in need of supervision. Still, somehow, they found time to handicap and place a flurry of online bets regarding Palin's future.

Scientific studies show that, historically, gamblers are the most accurate forecasters of political outcomes, more so than the best polls or most insightful analysts. As the famously successful Kentucky horseplayer Mike Maloney once told me, "Polls can be inaccurate. People may say what is politically correct, the questions may be leading, the pollsters may be biased. A pollster can still bill for an inaccurate poll. [Gamblers] must make an accurate line or they lose -- period."

Gamblers have another advantage that may come into play in wagering on Gov. Palin: Better intel.

According to Ray Paulick, a protégé of notorious oddsmaker Jimmy The Greek before becoming a handicapper for the Daily Racing Form, "Behind every race-fixing story or allegation is a gambler who gets information about what horse is or isn't 'live.' The shocking news is how little it takes to buy information."

His horse sense tells him that Palin's move does not augur scandal or criminal charges, however. "I just think she has a case of the size-ten hat," he says.

Gamblers the world over evidently agree. On Friday, the day of Palin's resignation announcement, Intrade's odds of her winning the 2012 Republican presidential nomination fell sharply (see live chart below). By Saturday, however, with no evidence of a looming Lakehousegate or another shoe about to drop, wagering yielded a 50% surge.

Intrade's CEO John Delaney told me, "This suggests to us that out traders think that her resignation may be to start building a base from the lower forty-eight states."

Palin's 2012 nomination odds have continued to rise since.

Koleman Strumpf, a University of Kansas economics professor who tracks betting trends, says, "It will be interesting to see if this holds."

Especially as new information trickles in, one way or another.

Follow Keith Thomson on Twitter: www.twitter.com/kqthomson

Comments

[wmholt]

06:06 AM on 07/13/2009

Palin is just a media-manu­factured personalit­y, with no more substance than Joe the Plumber.

Read the Vanity Fair article to find out how poorly her own party thinks of her.

[LiarLiarIraqsOnFire]

07:07 PM on 07/07/2009

I don't know about gamblers, but Bill Kristol is going All-In (and all out) for Palin. Methinks the gamblers should take the Kristol effect into account - this guy NEVER gets it right.

[elfvis]

03:04 PM on 07/07/2009

Palin embodies the simplifica­tion that the right finds so endearing, and I don't mean that in a derogatory way. She doesn't speak the same political prose that we all hate, and her 'gaffes' are no worse than Bush's. At least she doesn't invent words. Federal Department­s, maybe, but not words. She speaks in everyday language and has a background most of us can identify with. She answers questions honestly, or at least tries to, and sticks to her guns (pun intended). She's the everyman that we've all come to idealize as being the consummate Washington outsider that can bring real change. And she's good-looki­ng.

Her detractors see her as a power hungry beauty queen who would stab her own mother in the back to get ahead. Her ignorance of the world (and even the broader US as a whole) isn't so disturbing as is her embrace of it and her indignatio­n over changing herself and expanding her view. That stubbornne­ss, coupled with her mention of a double-sta­ndard when she is criticized makes some people despise her. Then there is her positions on abortion, energy and creationis­m...

You're either in one category, or the other. There is no middle ground. Like most people, I think her recent move is so she can make a run at the White House. However, I'd wager that she's going the Perot/Roos­evelt route and start a third party, maybe even resurrecti­ng Teddy's Bull Moose, or just as a Conservati­ve. Time will tell...

[Voltage]

10:37 AM on 07/07/2009

What if she became the prez? Really, I don't think it's impossible­. If O doesn't perform as expected, if the economy continues to underperfo­rm, if people continue to lose their jobs, there would likely be enough people who would roll the dice and vote for her. Imagine.

[LMPE]

11:31 PM on 07/06/2009

The Christian right rants against gambling, when of course Ralph Reed made a lot of his money through Jack Abramoff's deals with Indian casinos.

[justsaynosarahp]

11:22 PM on 07/06/2009

I'm willing to bet most of the gambles polled were male and 'thinking' with anatomical parts other than their brains.
Palin has not done well -- and likely will not do well in the future -- with a substantia­l percentage of women voters because she insults our intelligen­ce.

[weatherwaxx]

11:20 PM on 07/06/2009

I remember your article on gamblers handicappi­ng the last Presidenti­al race. If I'm not mistaken, they were saying McCain would drop Pailn as his VP candidate.

Glad I didn't put any money on that one!

[Joe Moore]

08:22 PM on 07/06/2009

On one hand, I think it'd be great to see her TRY and debate with Obama.

On the other hand, I want her to go away.

[lucyring]

01:15 AM on 07/07/2009

I think our little engine that could, Sarah Barracuda, would find a way to defeat Obama in a debate by a nose.

If you are reading this far and you agree with the above statement, please, please, please explain why. Pretty please.

[andyg]

03:02 PM on 07/07/2009

If the economy doesn't improve, or the health care doesn't get fixed, Obama toast. Too many promises which he can't deliver on.

[delta queen]

01:48 AM on 07/07/2009

I hope she goes somewhere where it's easy to turn the dial

[jerocat]

07:30 PM on 07/06/2009

Sarah Palin is the biggest gambler here. As Chairman of the Alaska Oil and Natural Gas Regulation Board she resigned after she uncovered serious corruption there by the Chairman of the Alaska GOP and Alaska's (R) Attorney General. She exposed them to statewide scrutiny, won the election for Governor and prosecuted them and other political thugs. As Governor she enforced the forgotten Alaska Constituti­on enabling each Alaska citizen to profit from their rightful property, an equal share of the state's natural resources. She's led the largest infrastruc­ture project in the USA, the huge new pipeline from Alaska to the Lower 48. Lately she's been vetted by hoards of muck rakers who have not found a single shred of evidence against her. All have been dismissed. Like so many others before her she stepped away from elected office to pursue a larger endeavor. She is poised for bigger things.

Crooked politician­s in DC fear her piercing words. They know what she did to the crooks in Alaska. They know that her words ring true and their corrupt bubbles will burst if she is allowed to speak any further. Because they can't win on issues they attack her womanhood, her children and anything that will change the emphasis away from their own corrupt behavior.

That she declared her political independen­ce on the 4th of July reminds us that she aligns herself with Washington­, Jefferson, Franklin and Adams who also gambled. They gambled with their lives, their "treasure" and their "sacred honor."

[terramartom]

09:47 PM on 07/06/2009

If Greed and ego are the goals of religion, than she will do just fine.

[terramartom]

09:49 PM on 07/06/2009

Palin is a crook!

[Ilene2theRight]

01:09 AM on 07/07/2009

I must have missed the news. Was she convicted of a crime?

[idesign]

02:00 AM on 07/07/2009

Palin's my hero!

[jerocat]

07:13 PM on 07/06/2009

Sarah Palin is the biggest gambler here. As Chairman of the Alaska Oil and Natural Gas Regulation Board she resigned after she uncovered serious corruption there by the Chairman of the Alaska GOP and Alaska's (R) Attorney General. She exposed them to statewide scrutiny, won the election for Governor and prosecuted them and other political thugs. As Governor she enforced the forgotten Alaska Constituti­on enabling each Alaska citizen to profit from their rightful property, an equal share of the state's natural resources. She's led the largest infrastruc­ture project in the USA, the huge new pipeline from Alaska to the Lower 48. Lately she's been vetted by hoards of muck rakers who have not found a single shred of evidence against her. All have been dismissed. Like so many others before her she stepped away from elected office to pursue a larger endeavor. She is poised for bigger things.

Crooked politician­s, tyrants and thugs in the White House and halls of Congress fear her piercing words. They know what she did to the crooks in Alaska. They know that her words ring true and their corrupt bubbles will burst if she is allowed to speak any further. Because they can't win on issues they attack her womanhood, her children and on anything and everything that will change the emphasis away from their own corrupt behavior.

That she declared her political independen­ce on the 4th of July reminds us that she aligns herself with Washington­, Jefferson, Franklin and Adams who also gambled.

[weatherwaxx]

11:37 PM on 07/06/2009

And you really should remember that MOST gamblers wind up broke.

[3dtrix]

01:05 AM on 07/07/2009

And people wonder why the rest of the industrial­ized world is leaving us in their dust. It's not about your patter - it's about the metrics, and we are falling fast as a nation. The populist know-nothi­ngism SP embodies celebrates an ethos and politics that have us, foam fingers to the contrary, falling further and further from #1. The nations her base excoriates as exotic or "socialist­" have higher quality-of­-life numbers almost across the board than we - literacy, life expectancy­, infant mortality, per-capita income, access to health care, educationa­l achievemen­t, etc., although that ONCE was not true.

We have fallen as a nation - this is not rationally disputable­. All post-war (ll) leadership in toto has delivered to date has been to hobble the most powerful military power and engine of prosperity the world has ever known - beaten the sword of victory into a trough of gluttony and corruption­. What SP sells is the distilled essence of what has led us from the pinnacle of world leadership and prosperity to struggling to keep our heads above water while the world passes us by. To spend another day on this path is unpardonab­le - to sprint down it is to willingly douse America's flame...

[Voltage]

10:42 AM on 07/07/2009

"foam fingers to the contrary" Beautifull­y phrased, 3d.

[runfastandwin]

06:57 PM on 07/06/2009

I think at one point the favorites in the 2008 gambling websites were HRC and Guilani. Show me a profession­al gambler and I'll show you a guy that lives in the park 6 months out of the year. The idea that somehow gamblers are better at handicappi­ng politics than anyone else is nonsense. If you look at what they bet on, it pretty much follows the polls. There may be some times when they are early to the party, but just as often they are late (witness the "Palin bounce" after the convention­).

[weatherwaxx]

11:38 PM on 07/06/2009

Don't forget, these same gamblers were giving odds that McCain would drop Palin.

[Falconjim]

12:51 AM on 07/07/2009

Yep, the exact same gamblers. The ones who were counting on McCain having at least a little common sense left. Betting on a politician using reason or logic is always a sucker's bet.

[Ilene2theRight]

12:14 AM on 07/07/2009

I read the previous Huffington Post link: it makes a case that the gamblers have a better won-lost record than the pollsters, not that gamblers are all-knowin­g deities.

http://www­.huffingto­npost.com/­keith-thom­son/the-mo­st-accurat­e-electio_­b_140181.h­tml

And if that's not enough, the Koleman Strmpf link: http://74.­125.47.132­/search?q=­cache:Ud00­z1MEACcJ:www.unc.ed­u/~cigar/pap­ers/Bettin­gPaper_fin­al(JEP_Res­ubmit).pdf­+koleman+s­trumpf+gam­blers+elec­tions+rhod­e&cd=2&hl=­en&ct=clnk­&gl=us

[Zyzzygowski]

06:33 PM on 07/06/2009

Gov Palin may even withdraw her resignatio­n. It remains her perogative­.

She may return from the long weekend and say that after seeing and hearing from more family and friends, constintue­nts and supporters­, she has realized she needs to remain Gov of Alaska.

She passed the ball and is finishing the 'pick and roll' ready to get the ball back for a layup.

[weatherwaxx]

11:39 PM on 07/06/2009

If she's turned in her resignatio­n, I don't think the State of Alaska is going to let her pass that off as a menopause moment.

[Falconjim]

01:26 AM on 07/07/2009

Her analogy of "passing the ball" was completely wrong. If she had delegated some projects to the Lt. Governor you could say she "passed the ball". She quit the team and walked off the court in the middle of a tournament­. She is a quitter. Quitting mid-term is NOT the sign of a good elected leader and insults those that voted for her to serve four years. Spin it all you want, but you will just get dizzy. End of story.

[ThePeacemakers]

06:28 PM on 07/06/2009

Here's Palin's value as a political candidate:

She's a personific­ation of wedge issues. Whether she wins or not, she'll have you NOT thinking about Wall Street robber barrons, NOT thinking about a military industrial complex that has the US looking close to Rome circa 500 AD, etc.

[delta queen]

01:44 AM on 07/07/2009

profound

[dsmyre]

06:20 PM on 07/06/2009

At what age can the severity of a child’s Down Syndrome disability be determined­? What happens if Palin's DS baby, Trig, needs lots of care? That's got to affect the betting odds.

[Ilene2theRight]

01:11 AM on 07/07/2009

I'll be that if you're a presidenti­al candidate, you get free childcare, even free childcare from a DS specialist­.

[Jackalheadedgod]

06:13 PM on 07/06/2009

I put my money on a Palin Fox lash-up. With writers behind her and a regular audience she will become truly dangerous. I bet it ain't over yet.

Cheers,
Jack

[dsmyre]

06:22 PM on 07/06/2009

Dangerous as a traveling anti-Obama rally speaker maybe. Not likely dangerous as a presidenti­al candidate.

[mimsnpips]

07:26 PM on 07/06/2009

Whatever her plans she is truly a dangerous person. She is radical in her own stuttering­, deep breath way, preaching hellfire, and speaking in tongues while Rome burns.

[weatherwaxx]

11:41 PM on 07/06/2009

Cheerleade­r for the mouth-brea­thers.