Bookies hold back Biden payouts in long odds of a Trump election win

Gambling websites are holding hundreds of millions of dollars in payouts of a Joe Biden election win as Donald Trump remains at long odds of winning a second term.

While media outlets have projected that Mr Biden won the election, the results are not official until either Mr Trump concedes or all vote counts are certified and electors officially choose the next president.

Read more: Joe Biden wins the 2020 US election - follow live updates

The president is unlikely to concede any time soon as he wages multiple legal battles contesting results in key states that decided the election for Mr Biden.

As a result, the balance hangs in the balance. One website alone, Betfair Exchange, has almost $600m (£455.5m) in bookings awaiting an official result, more than double its $258m (£195m) in 2016.  

"We will only settle the markets when there is certainty around which candidate has the most projected Electoral College votes," Betfair said in its latest market settlement update.

"Before settling the markets, we must therefore wait for clarity around ongoing vote counts, recounts and any potential legal challenges to the results."

One Betfair punter is hoping more than most those legal challenges fail, having placed a $1.32m (£1m) bet on Mr Biden that would pay out $2m (£1.52) if the results hold.

Betting firm Sporting Index, however, thinks they might not.

Sporting Index trading spokesman, Phill Fairclough, said the president's refusal to concede could mean the Republican remains in the White House until late February 2021 - despite the inauguration scheduled for 20 January.

“We’re waiting for the conclusion of the safe harbour deadline on 8 December, which will provide clarity from a legal and constitutional viewpoint, before settling the winner of the election overall and the Electoral College Votes market,” Mr Fairclough told The Independent.

“While circumstances mean that a court battle is almost certain, this will likely delay Joe Biden’s ‘move-in date’ to Pennsylvania Avenue – or depending on the outcome mean Trump’s reign is extended.

"As such, we predict it will take another 106 days from now before Trump finally leaves the Oval Office on 26 February.”

BetOnline is also not relying on media projections of the election outcome to pay out bets on Mr Biden, with a winner not being graded until Mr Trump exhausts his legal options.

BetOnline sportsbook manager Adam Burnes said that while the election was bigger than the Super Bowl, the results aren't as clearly defined by a referee's whistle.

“People who bet Trump say it is not over. People who bet Biden say it is. This makes for a tricky situation where we have to be sure. It’s not like a football game,” Mr Burnes told The New York Post.

There's a historical reason for this. In 2016, PaddyPower paid out more than $1m for a Hillary Clinton win before Election Day.

Online gambling platform PredictIt still hasn't closed its markets and will continue trading shares until recounts and litigation by both campaigns have finished.

“Once we have all the electoral counts in and we see that there is a legitimate winner, we’ll suspend the market but until we’re sure we’re not going to pay out,” Brandi Travis, chief marketing officer for PredictIt support firm, Aristotle International, told Bloomberg Wealth.

“It’s bad for the country, and it’s bad for our site."

PredictIt is currently trading shares for Mr Trump at 14 cents compared to Mr Biden at 88 cents.

While those are long odds for an eventual win for Mr Trump, they're not far off the 20 per cent chance the president has been given by former Clinton administration staffer Graham Allison.

Mr Allison, who served under the Clinton administration as Assistant Secretary of Defense, said Mr Trump’s legal challenges aren’t as futile as many believe.

“Without disagreeing with the conventional wisdom about the final tally when all the legal votes are counted, I believe the current consensus is missing the fact that Trump has a second, viable stealthy road to victory,” Mr Allison wrote in The National Interest last Friday.

He said the debate will continue until at least 6 January and likely beyond as appeals make their way through to the Supreme Court.

Essentially, if the legal challenges jam up the process and leave disputes unresolved there are two ways the gridlock could be brooken. 

State legislatures have the constitutional authority to conclude the vote has been corrupted and send a competing slate of electors on behalf of their state, he says.

Secondly, if no candidate has required 270 electoral votes the House of Representatives would choose the president by ballot, with the representation from each state getting just one vote.

Republicans currently hold the majority of state legislatures (projected to be 55 to 44), and the majority of state delegations in the House of Representatives (projected to be 26 to 24). So in either case where the president is chosen by the states legislatures or the House,  Mr Trump could slip in through the back door.

“I project a 20 per cent chance of a contested election outcome leading to a victory for President Trump,” wrote Mr Allison, who is currently the Douglas Dillon Professor of Government at Harvard University.

“Both the words of the 12th Amendment, and historical precedent offer a credible, stealthy, winding road that could lead to Trump’s victory and a second term. Or as the saying goes: the opera ain’t over till the fat lady sings.”