Too soon? Perhaps, but oddsmakers are already submitting their bets for who will be victorious in the 2028 presidential election.
Betting markets surged during the 2024 presidential race, and many were accurate in predicting President-elect Donald Trump’s victory over Vice President Kamala Harris on Tuesday to become the 47th president of the United States.
On sites like Polymarket, which considers itself the world’s largest prediction market, the former president had a 62 percent chance of winning a second term in the White House as of Tuesday morning. On the site Kalshi, Trump had a 58.6 percent chance of victory as of 10 a.m. ET Tuesday.
Almost immediately after Trump’s victory, betting sites began releasing odds for who will become the 48th president of the U.S. Many sites favor Vice President-elect JD Vance—Bookies.com oddsmaker Adam Thompson gives Vance a 40 percent chance of being elected in four years. According to SportsBettingDime’s William Hill, Vance has a 25 percent chance.
Other names high on both Thompson and Hill’s lists include California Governor Gavin Newsom, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis and former first lady Michelle Obama.
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Thompson also predicts Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro and Kentucky Governor Andy Beshear—both of whom were considered for Harris’ vice presidential pick—to be contenders for the next presidency. Per Thompson’s predictions, Harris has a 7.7 percent chance of winning in four years.
Hill, on the other hand, considers former Hawaii Congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard, a Democratic-turned-independent who backed Trump’s campaign, as a potential presidential nominee. Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and conservative commentator Tucker Carlson also made it high on Hill’s list.
According to Hill’s predictions, Harris has a 3.8 percent chance of winning in 2028.
According to Bookmakers Review, betting platforms have accurately predicted the outcome of 77 percent of elections over the last 35 years. Since 1980, the only race where the winning candidate had worse odds than the losing candidate was in 2016, when Trump beat Clinton in his first presidential campaign.
An anonymous online trader who earned the nickname “Trump whale” reportedly made around $48 million from betting on Trump’s victory this week. In an interview with The Wall Street Journal, the bettor was identified as a French former bank trader and went by the name “Théo.”
Théo told the Journal that he commissioned his own “neighbor polls” to help his betting choices. In total, he placed over $30 million in bets. According to a study from blockchain-analysis company Chainalysis, Théo was linked to 11 Polymarket accounts, which made more than $84 million in total.
Newsweek reached out to Polymarket for additional comment Friday outside of regular office hours.
