Overseas betting on the midterm elections soars, with big money on the Illinois governor's race

The Chicago Tribune reports:

Far, far away on the Caribbean island of Antigua, Pat Morrow is paying more attention to the midterms than many Americans.

These days, the Canada native often spends at least four or five hours scouring the internet for new polls, new articles, new tweets — anything that could offer insight to voter behavior in the time leading up to the Nov. 6 elections. As the head oddsmaker for Bovada.lv, a popular online betting site, it’s Morrow’s duty to stay one step ahead of the American public.


It’s a relatively new part of the job, he said, for political gambling used to comprise a minuscule portion of Bovada’s dealings.

“Since 2016, we take the wagering on politics much more seriously,” Morrow said, crediting President Donald Trump for surging interest in the line of business. Morrow calculates Bovada has received almost 10,000 individual bets on different midterm races — a number he expects to grow to at least 50,000 by election night.

So far, about $400,000 has been wagered on the Illinois gubernatorial race, according to data from us-bookies.com, a Copenhagen, Denmark-based aggregator of online gambling sites. Predicting which party will hold post-election control of the House and Senate is another popular bet, racking up about $3 million across the industry.

The Donald helps an industry grow.