Most Americans oppose betting on elections, government events, Reuters/Ipsos pol

[Ndabagi01]

The results of the election cannot be manipulated but this people voting to not allow such events happen on election day may not be actually gamblers or predictors, they’re just after people not engaging in such acts prior to or during elections. They may as well know the after effect of such events and how it can lead to addictions, but they’re not in anyway interested or even encourage others to also take part in them. These data won’t surely affect the participation of people in such market, but the lessons learnt has a lot to say on how prediction market may actually be paving during election periods.

[Davidvictorson]

Do you think that survey is accurate?

I liked in the link and tried to get more details in their survey but apparently they didn’t give such details.
I was interested in looking at their methodology. I wanted to know which people were surveyed and if it is truly a representative sample but unfortunately that information wasn’t given or maybe I missed it.

I do not think this kind of service is necessary. I do not see a way betting on United States presidential election can lead to manipulations.

One if things I have learned in life is that nothing is impossible. It may be difficult but there is always a 5% chance. Even in statistics confidence level is 95%.

[rbynxx]

Do you think that survey is accurate?

I do not think this kind of service is necessary. I do not see a way betting on United States presidential election can lead to manipulations.

I think 4,500 persons is a fair sample, but I think it really depends on how they conduct this survey.

I actually find it a stupid survey, no matter the sample. But that’s what pollsters do – they sometimes ask stupid questions.

It always varies, and you can't really rely on it that much. Even if they surveyed that huge sample size of people, it doesn't mean the results reflect what everyone thinks. It will always depends on who they asked, how the questions were asked, and whether these people they surveyed represents the whole population that votes. Besides, the people's opinions with this kind of issues may change and it will also depends on how the question is presented.

[r_victory]

Prediction markets function as a kind of preliminary to elections, a real-time poll of voting intentions. I don't think it significantly influences the vote of undecided people or can be taken as an anticipated result. Perhaps it's inconvenient for the losing side.

The rapidly growing prediction market industry led by Polymarket and Kalshi allows people to bet on a raft of events, including US ‌elections, government policy moves and sports games, raising concerns among policymakers that the platforms are opening up new avenues for insider trading and manipulation.

What privileged information could someone benefit from, given that the result of an election is determined at the end of the vote count? What could be manipulated in this case?

[EluguHcman]

I do not know if this is initiated not to allow prediction market not to allow United States presidential election bet. 4506 people in the United States voted. The vote is not in favour of gamblers.

Don't bother too much in the aspect that the system did not favour gamblers because, it is not new any longer that in the prediction market where players bets against themselves, there is always seasons that the majority will fail whereas, manipulation in gambling is better focused benefiting the house while gamblers losses more.

This is also one of the reasons why we should not be too quick to follow the crowd. Even when the road looks a way of victory.
And when the event has to do with public events is very easy to tamper.
This is why insider bets are usually suspected of cheats because it is questionable how come they wins when the masses loss on same market.

[Hispo]

I would have expected to see more people being in favor of betting in elections and political events in general, specially people who identified themselves as Republicans.
I say so because it would seem to me that the United States has started to move closer to accept betting and gambling as normal activities on their society, but this survey tells completely the contrary to that assumption.

Maybe they would have asked more people, there could be some bias on this survey which leans the position of the public towards the rejection of gambling and betting as something positive or acceptable when comes to important political events in the country.

I am sure here in my country, the majority of people would feel it is okey to bet in elections, specially since there are a lot of people who find themselves in economical hardships here.

[Alvin_talk]

Basically some citizens believe elections should not be treated as gambling because they believe it is too important to the country to be considered as a form of financial speculation and that is quite understandable. Also, I agree with user yahoo point of view, allowing such betting activities  will lead to bias among voters, because I wouldn't want to vote against the candidate in my game even if he is not the best candidate, I mean who doesn't want to win money. So it is better to eliminate this bias and that’s not bad for the country.

[tread93]

This explains the decline in betting activity in America, according to Gallup's latest survey, only 45% of American adults reported gambling in the past year, compared to 64% in 2016.

Of course you cannot expect the majority to favor gambling or even gamble because this data already shows that fewer Americans are participating.
And since this is election betting, they would be even less likely to support it as it could undermine the integrity of the election.

Wow thats a big drop 20% reminds me of the drop in percentage for the decline of alcohol sales in the US i wonder if there is any correlation lol. I wonder why fewer Americans are participating but I also think many Americans are just fed up with politics

[Ziskinberg]

This explains the decline in betting activity in America, according to Gallup's latest survey, only 45% of American adults reported gambling in the past year, compared to 64% in 2016.

Of course you cannot expect the majority to favor gambling or even gamble because this data already shows that fewer Americans are participating.
And since this is election betting, they would be even less likely to support it as it could undermine the integrity of the election.

Wow thats a big drop 20% reminds me of the drop in percentage for the decline of alcohol sales in the US i wonder if there is any correlation lol. I wonder why fewer Americans are participating but I also think many Americans are just fed up with politics

Maybe a huge drop but that's just a percentage, we also have to consider the population growth or the number of people who have become adults from 2016 to the date of the survey that's 10 years right. So the percentage may drop but the actual number of bettors, we don't know. Because if we look at the revenue of the gambling industry in the US, it's increasing so how would you explain that?

[Julien_Olynpic]

Americans are against election betting, but why is their opinion alone sufficient to ban election betting? In my opinion, regulation is better than bans. Regarding manipulation, I generally agree that political betting is bound to be subject to manipulation and, in fact, is already being manipulated. Of course, it's difficult to combat this because there are so many insiders in politics. Strictly speaking, all political analysis and forecasts are based on insiders.

[viljy]

It’s very similar to an unrepresentative sample. A small number of people were surveyed. It’s unclear who these surveyed individuals are in terms of their lifestyle, not just their political affiliation. How and where was the survey conducted? This could have affected the specificity of the audience. However, if the survey were conducted on a prediction market website, the results would likely be different.

This survey reflects the views of the older generation (https://www.reuters.com/world/most-americans-oppose-betting-elections-government-events-reutersipsos-poll-2026-10-12/):

"Everyone should make their own decisions about their lives," ​said Ronna Schmoker, 72, a Democrat from a Dallas suburb who participated in the poll. "But like anything, you have to have guardrails."

"I just don't think it's good for a society to bet on whether things will turn out a certain way," said Michael Clark, a 48-year-old conservative who lives outside Dallas and participated in the poll.

Then, the article suddenly shifts to a demand to regulate prediction markets in the same way as gambling. Although the survey was about something completely different - about the influence of betting on politics (https://www.reuters.com/world/most-americans-oppose-betting-elections-government-events-reutersipsos-poll-2026-10-12/):

"By that rationale, MGM (Resorts) owns dozens of financial markets," said Glenn Rishton, a 76-year-old Republican poll respondent in Gulfport, Mississippi, referring to the casino company. "It's effectively gambling."

"Prediction markets should have the same level ​of regulations as gambling," said Janessa Manning, 48, a Democrat in Detroit. "Even though they pretend they aren’t gambling, they are."

From these quotes in the article, it is clear that the age of the respondents is significant. If the respondents included people in their 20s and 30s, wouldn’t the article have included their opinions as well? But no, it seems that the article has a clear goal — to discredit prediction markets from two angles at once: "influence on politics" and "illegal gambling." Let’s assume that the latter has some basis, since prediction markets are still a form of gambling, albeit an unusual one, but the former is highly questionable.

[Rabata]

The title of the topic in full: Most Americans oppose betting on elections, government events, Reuters/Ipsos poll finds

I do not know if this is initiated not to allow prediction market not to allow United States presidential election bet. 4506 people in the United States voted. The vote is not in favour of gamblers.

While it is not certain that betting on elections directly affects the election, it cannot be denied that it has some effect. I would like to give due importance to the results of the survey. Although the survey does not include all American citizens, but only a small number of people, it gives a lot of idea about the real situation. Most of the 4,506 adults surveyed oppose betting on elections. A large part of the survey thinks that betting on elections is inappropriate. Betting odds and various other factors have a great potential to influence the outcome of the election. However, according to the situation, while the Trump administration is thinking positively about the federal regulatory framework of the prediction market, on the other hand, differences of opinion are emerging among the states government to strict. In my view, there should be no room for any influence in a national election, because gambling and politics are completely different matters.

[ZeroVinsonN]

I think it will. There is high influence of elections with gambling since prediction market started. I watch how Polymarket was discussed during the last US presidential election. A day to election and Trump was leading with vote, people had more vote on Trump to win the election, that was clearly sending message to people to vote for Trump, election has not even needed and Trump was leading in the race. This is the kind of scenario they are trying to avoid in the upcoming election.

Let's me used my country as another example, the election is fast approaching this January, people are buying shares on prediction markets and guess what? The active president's has about 80% chance of winning. What does that tells you, they want people to assume that the active president is going to win and the rest are going to lose, that's how bad election results can be during election time.

That's the problem, if someone is already leading in the prediction market then it's very likely for people to just vote for that person, not because they think that candidate is the better choice but because everything already points to them winning and this is where things can get bad, there can be a secret campaign to get more people betting on one particular candidate, it might not even be restricted to citizens of that country since foreigners can place their own bets as well so people can be bought off the bet on one person and once that person appears to be winning most will just vote for them in the election out of indifference.

[Cointxz]

Maybe a huge drop but that's just a percentage, we also have to consider the population growth or the number of people who have become adults from 2016 to the date of the survey that's 10 years right. So the percentage may drop but the actual number of bettors, we don't know. Because if we look at the revenue of the gambling industry in the US, it's increasing so how would you explain that?

Actually, this contradiction was already explained by the Gallup which is the source for that data shared by @Questat.

These reports of individual gambling activity may seem at odds with growth in the gambling industry, generally, as measured by gambling revenue in dollars. However, increased gambling revenue may result from a smaller pool of Americans gambling more frequently or paying higher prices to gamble than in the past. It could also reflect that gambling revenue may be easier to track now that gambling activity has shifted primarily to formal, government-sanctioned activities and away from informal means that may have been harder to measure

It’s not surprising that the majority of US citizen’s against it considering that there’s a lot of questionable betting market events that are prone to inside manipulation that might jeopardize the election integrity.

[Hewlet]

It probably won't lead to manipulation but people are very easily mislead these days, especially the weak minded folks, the moment one candidate that having more people betting for them to win you will find that most who were apathetic to the election will end up voting for whoever was is leading in the bets and something like that can very easily be manipulated with mass false bets being placed on one candidate over the other.

So in essence, it is all about protecting the interest of the political class and not about allowing the people engage in what they have control over to an extent? If there is proper voters sensitization among the people, then their choice candidate must not be the one the majority of people are voting for. if based on the outcome of the election betting it suggest that your preferred candidate is not doing well, is it not only wise to work even harder to improve on that before the actual voting takes place. this is rather a morally driven opposition that is as a result of the evil that is mostly associated with gambling.

With or without this, there is still a concern on manipulation of the people to vote a particular candidate. anyone that just votes a candidate just because he is leading in the predictive market can be easily manipulated to vote even an unfit candidate.
 

[traderethereum]

The survey might not accurate as we don't know that is real or fake. The 4.506 people will not represent all people in the US so we don't need that service. Election should not be used as betting but we can't say that because some of them want to make money from election.

If in a country prohibit gambling, people will not bet on their country but they could search for other ways that allow to bet.

[avp2306]

Americans are against election betting, but why is their opinion alone sufficient to ban election betting? In my opinion, regulation is better than bans. Regarding manipulation, I generally agree that political betting is bound to be subject to manipulation and, in fact, is already being manipulated. Of course, it's difficult to combat this because there are so many insiders in politics. Strictly speaking, all political analysis and forecasts are based on insiders.

Because no one is taking action on it, it seems the officials are busy with other things.

That's why we don't see any noise, about potential banning upon betting on election.

But if this will get more traction, then there's some official will try to push some legislation about it. Maybe that banning will happen in future. Manipulation is probably the main concern on why many Americans dislike that option.

[KiaKia]

Let's be honest here, election in my own country is the biggest fraud of all time, it's a place where a candidate will be telling you that even if you don't vote for them they will still win, tell me where that is coming from if not some kind of manipulation going on.

Even the presidential election, the same thing happened, so I understand what is going on here when the American people says no to betting on elections and government events, it's definitely going to be a manipulation bet.

It's in the same reason why I dislike prediction markets because I saw how easier it is for government officials to make money from it illegally, the events is related to them why can't they manipulate it and make loads of cash from it?

[ZeroVinsonN]

It probably won't lead to manipulation but people are very easily mislead these days, especially the weak minded folks, the moment one candidate that having more people betting for them to win you will find that most who were apathetic to the election will end up voting for whoever was is leading in the bets and something like that can very easily be manipulated with mass false bets being placed on one candidate over the other.

So in essence, it is all about protecting the interest of the political class and not about allowing the people engage in what they have control over to an extent? If there is proper voters sensitization among the people, then their choice candidate must not be the one the majority of people are voting for. if based on the outcome of the election betting it suggest that your preferred candidate is not doing well, is it not only wise to work even harder to improve on that before the actual voting takes place. this is rather a morally driven opposition that is as a result of the evil that is mostly associated with gambling.

With or without this, there is still a concern on manipulation of the people to vote a particular candidate. anyone that just votes a candidate just because he is leading in the predictive market can be easily manipulated to vote even an unfit candidate.
 

Let's take my country as an example right now, a good percentage of its citizens are apathetic to the electoral process and people can deny it all they want but vote buying is a thing that happens so it's very likely for people who've seen the direction the election is leaning from the prediction market to decide to just sell their vote to the suppose 'winning candidate', it wouldn't matter that other people are struggling to get their preferred candidate to win, someone who is able to get multiple people to bet on their victory will also be able to pay to buy votes and someone who doesn't trust the electoral system will rather sell their vote then vote for a different person when they've already falsely believed that their vote won't count.

[xenomorfo]

Let's be honest here, election in my own country is the biggest fraud of all time, it's a place where a candidate will be telling you that even if you don't vote for them they will still win, tell me where that is coming from if not some kind of manipulation going on.

Even the presidential election, the same thing happened, so I understand what is going on here when the American people says no to betting on elections and government events, it's definitely going to be a manipulation bet.

It's in the same reason why I dislike prediction markets because I saw how easier it is for government officials to make money from it illegally, the events is related to them why can't they manipulate it and make loads of cash from it?

fraud because it is the state that is a fraud
tell me, do you feel represented by the state? it's just a bigger and more organized criminal group than normal criminals
you pay him, you pay him the bribe and he doesn't do anything to you

Tell me I'm not telling the truth, i dare you.
The state sucks.