My logic for bailing out of the spread betting markets on this year’s White House Race
I’ll let you all into a little secret, it is entirely possible the stonking huge polling leads that Biden has turn out to be accurate but he still doesn’t win the Presidency. One scenario is where Biden gets votes where he doesn’t need them and Trump gets the votes where he needs them, but the scenario I’m going to look at today is that America isn’t a functioning democracy.
With a pandemic on it has been obvious for some time that the number of mail in and absentee votes would increase by a Brobdingnagian amount, and as this tweet earlier on this month indicated that these votes are breaking overwhelmingly for Joe Biden.
Now if these votes are being rejected, as per the Thurgood Marshall Institute, then this is likely to be sub optimal for Joe Biden, I’m sure states with Republican Governors and the wider GOP will do their best to ensure the votes of Biden supporters are counted with the enthusiasm that famously poor Donald Trump paid his taxes in 2016.
If you’re having doubts about this election then also there’s this story that broke earlier in the week.
Russian state actors have conducted a campaign since at least September against a wide variety of targets, including dozens of “government and aviation networks,” ABC News has learned. Russia successfully compromised network infrastructure in some government agencies, according to government officials.
U.S. officials told ABC News that systems containing election-related information from two counties in two separate states were successfully hacked by the Russian effort. A new Homeland Security Alert states, “As this recent malicious activity has been directed at [state, local, territorial and tribal (SLTT)] government networks, there may be some risk to elections information housed on (those) government networks.”
So when betting on American politics it is wise to remember that this is not country with a free and fair electoral process, it may also not be robust enough to deal with outside mischief. If America was any other country, other nations and multinational organisations would be sending in electoral observers to ensure a free and fair election took place.
With the potential for huge losses on the spreads, I hope people can understand my logic for exiting the spreads.
TSE