Why you should not trust private polls

[Yarglenurp]

People keep citing poll results. However, they’re not looking at an important aspect that will absolutely skew poll results… gambling markets.

We live in an era where people are directly betting on political outcomes. I don’t mean this in the metaphorical stock market sense, I mean this in the outright “$50K on trump to win” sense. Political betting is massive business.

If you were a pollster, which is a better choice for you? Working your average $80k per year job, or putting all your cash in Harris via a set of laundering proxies because that’s what the results say, and then telling everyone that Trump was neck and neck?

Who could even prove you were lying?

 

[Politruk]

I find it hard to believe any pollsters are reporting their findings dishonestly because they have bets placed.

 

[Yarglenurp]

I find it hard to believe any pollsters are reporting their findings dishonestly because they have bets placed.

Why? It would be a “victimless” non-crime with enormous upside.

Athletes get caught betting on themselves all the time. And the punishment for them is that they get banned from a league, not criminal charges.

I’m pretty sure an 80k per year statistician is probably even better at hiding themselves from detection.

 

[butters]

i think people are aware, at least some of us on here are, of how the betting sites like Polymarket are skewing the other poll aggregators' results... wasn't Polymarket dropped from the list of polls being used by some of the main names?

anyways:

cryptonews
Polymarket Facing Rampant Wash Trading Claims in New Fortune Report



cointelegraph.com
Polymarket presidential election odds rife with wash trading — report

Separate investigations from Chaos Labs and Inca Digital allegedly found that approximately 30% of the 2024 United States Presidential election activity on Polymarket is the result of wash trading — a method of market manipulation designed to artificially boost volume.

According to the report from Fortune, both firms claim the actual transaction volume on the prediction platform was only $1.75 billion, compared to the $2.7 billion reported by Polymarket.

 

[ll74]

People never understand polls. I blame the media.

It's not the polls job to give you information. It just gives people an excuse not to vote.

Either vote, or stay home. Only one is
exercising your right positively.

Polls don't care

 

[butters]

i posted about this on another thread here... the four accounts responsible for placing so much money on trump, growing his 'odds' to win against Harris by a ridiculous sum, have all been traced back to a single french businessman; since that happened, a further account has laid down $2M, further flawing any polling results that include polymarket's skewed data

 

[RobDownSouth]

Haven't seen Weakspine McDerpy around lately....he was the bigliest advocate for the Polymarket crypto scam..the "only poll that mattered". Why? Becoze people were actually "putting their money where their mouth is!"

#DerpDerpDerp

 

[RobDownSouth]

People never understand polls. I blame the media.

It's not the polls job to give you information. It just gives people an excuse not to vote.

Either vote, or stay home. Only one is
exercising your right positively.

Polls don't care

Heard Nate Silver talk about how he's disengaging from political polling "No matter what result I reach I get a lot of pushback from the losing side" plus Americans simply do not understand "margin of error", which I absolutely agree with.

Silver says he wants to chuck everything after this election and focus on winning the World Series of Poker.

 

[ll74]

Heard Nate Silver talk about how he's disengaging from political polling "No matter what result I reach I get a lot of pushback from the losing side" plus Americans simply do not understand "margin of error", which I absolutely agree with.

Silver says he wants to chuck everything after this election and focus on winning the World Series of Poker.

That's sad. He's really good at analyzing the data...losing him won't help.

Media likes to tell people what to think and do
And people like to be told what to think or do.

Polls do neither.

 

[RobDownSouth]

That's sad. He's really good at analyzing the data...losing him won't help.

Media likes to tell people what to think and do
And people like to be told what to think or do.

Polls do neither.

I admire Silver's candor and science-based approaches.
You know he sold off his interest in 538 because of ideological differences, right?
Silver rocketed to fame by weighting the perceived biases in polls AND recognizing early that many pollsters were only calling boomer landlines.

Silver insisted his 2020 model still was accurate, even though he did badly on the 2022 midterms because he oversampled Republicans and undersampled voters under 30.

The "new" 538 that Silver sold has adjusted their model based on 2022 midterms and Silver has his new Silver Bullet polling which hews to the 2020 model he created.

"There can only be one".

 

[deckardB26354]

Haven't seen Weakspine McDerpy around lately....he was the bigliest advocate for the Polymarket crypto scam..the "only poll that mattered". Why? Becoze people were actually "putting their money where their mouth is!"

#DerpDerpDerp

He’s dealing with a lot. He went to school and all of a sudden they made him have an operation.

Now he’s busy learning about things like accessorizing and feminine hygiene.

 

[coati]

Media likes to tell people what to think and do
And people like to be told what to think or do.

Polls do neither.

Presidential political polling is crap, especially this year. It's a self-serving industry in a gaudy American election process that has become a scam for corporate media outlets and their advertisers.

The "dead heat" narrative is an ad-man's dream. Without conducting a single poll, I predict this election will not be the photo-finish horse race that corporations have been hyping for so long.

It's time to clean up the American election process.

 

[BabyBoomer50s]

People keep citing poll results. However, they’re not looking at an important aspect that will absolutely skew poll results… gambling markets.

We live in an era where people are directly betting on political outcomes. I don’t mean this in the metaphorical stock market sense, I mean this in the outright “$50K on trump to win” sense. Political betting is massive business.

If you were a pollster, which is a better choice for you? Working your average $80k per year job, or putting all your cash in Harris via a set of laundering proxies because that’s what the results say, and then telling everyone that Trump was neck and neck?

Who could even prove you were lying?

Gambling markets don’t skew poll results, but poll results (and other factors) skew gambling markets.

The polls are indicating the popular vote will be close. Not predicting. Just indicating. The probability of one candidate winning by more than 3-5 points looks doubtful. The EC count is anyone’s guess. Could be a landslide, for one or the other candidate.

 

[Politruk]

It's time to clean up the American election process.

Is there any way just to SHORTEN the election process?!

 

[JoePepsiCo]

Polls: For entertainment purposes only.


The surefire way to shorten it is to not participate; tune out.

This crap about undecided, I don't believe it for a second, those are the people who...

[not advocating for violence, merely expressing a FEELING, and y'all the feelings experts]​

... make you want to get out of your car, grab them by the shoulders, shake them and scream, "The McMenu hasn't changed in 40 fucking years, the only thing you need to know is Coke, Pepsi or Dew! Just ORDER!!!"

 

[Rebel5soul]

Polls: For entertainment purposes only.


The surefire way to shorten it is to not participate; tune out.

This crap about undecided, I don't believe it for a second, those are the people who...

[not advocating for violence, merely expressing a FEELING, and y'all the feelings experts]​

... make you want to get out of your car, grab them by the shoulders, shake them and scream, "The McMenu hasn't changed in 40 fucking years, the only thing you need to know is Coke, Pepsi or Dew! Just ORDER!!!"

Those assholes make you wish you had pulled up driving a Cat D6. A sure fire way of hurrying the line along.

 

[JoePepsiCo]

I have a 4X4

I can climb (virtually) into their back seat.

They do tend to get to scooting; it is Redneckiastan after all...

 

[JoePepsiCo]

Lots of future Vance can dancers around here...

 

[ll74]

Gambling markets don’t skew poll results, but poll results (and other factors) skew gambling markets.

The polls are indicating the popular vote will be close. Not predicting. Just indicating. The probability of one candidate winning by more than 3-5 points looks doubtful. The EC count is anyone’s guess. Could be a landslide, for one or the other candidate.

The rise of poly market is certainly an interesting development this cycle.

 

[JoePepsiCo]

I most certainly do not trust general consensus or eat Cap'n Crunch™...

 

[butters]

Media likes to tell people what to think and do

yes, often

And people like to be told what to think or do.

some of the people, certainly not all or even most. i honestly prefer news to be just news, unvarnished, un-opinionated, a simple, complete relating of the facts via observation and research into the truths of the matter at hand.

Polls do neither.

That might not be their intention but we know a whole lot of people will believe those polls are telling them the state of the overall situation. Instead, they are just a reflection of a specific number of people who answered and therefore any extrapolation might be skewed; people whose answers might have been different had the question been framed another way; and people whose inclusion in the poll might rest upon them being very invested in political matters or be coloured by where they live.

the brandishing of poll results so avidly by tv 'news' channels allows a general population to become confused as to what's true; they understand that their votes cast at the polling station are a fact and the 'polls decide' who becomes president, so it's easy for them to conflate what pre-election polls reflect with the actual polling data as votes in the election are cast. So when they keep seeing 'neck-and-neck' & 'razor-thin-margins', it's easy for them to believe that is the overall reality rather than a tally of a limited number of people that might not represent reality at all.

 

[Bray123]

Trump has it all worked out, all he needs is for more of his supporters to be included in the polls and he'll be shown as leading.
Why didn't Kamala Harris think of that?

 

[butters]

trump odds being improved by just 1% of the bettors on polymarket

after another 'whale' invests $7M on trump 'YES' tokens, his backers are whining about 'Harris supporters' selling theirs at a lower price and thereby suppressing trump odds... um, yeah. ok.

Whale activity on Polymarket accelerated in the past few days, with a mix of true believers and suspected market manipulators. One of the latest supporters of Trump’s victory continued to buy ‘Yes’ tokens with a new $7.03M deposit from Kraken. The new inflow of funds adds to the $70M spent by whales in supporting the potential Trump victory.

The whale has an estimated $714K unrealized loss after Trump’s ‘Yes’ tokens slid from $0.66 down to $0.61.

so the morons whining are fine with manipulated betting odds so long as it's done by trump... and seem to believe the odds directly correlate with a trump win or loss.
trump will lean into it as election fraud, even though they are merely betting odds, not an iron-clad forecast in the form of a pre-election poll.

 

[Deleted member 6873114]

People keep citing poll results. However, they’re not looking at an important aspect that will absolutely skew poll results… gambling markets.

We live in an era where people are directly betting on political outcomes. I don’t mean this in the metaphorical stock market sense, I mean this in the outright “$50K on trump to win” sense. Political betting is massive business.

If you were a pollster, which is a better choice for you? Working your average $80k per year job, or putting all your cash in Harris via a set of laundering proxies because that’s what the results say, and then telling everyone that Trump was neck and neck?

Who could even prove you were lying?

I NEVER trust a poll unless I am certain it is safe. Otherwise that is what condoms are for.

 

[ll74]

Can't wait to see who this alt turns out to be