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Nov. 1, 2024 - Babylon Bee
38:54
Who Will Win The Election? The Bee Predicts It All! | The Babylon Bee Podcast

The Babylon Bee is Garbage For Trump in this election betting odds special with guest Maxim Lott of ElectionBettingOdds.Com, who tells us Trump is absolutely 100% going to win every time 60% of the time. President Biden called Trump supporters garbage, Whoopi Goldberg went on an insane rant, and Kamala seems to be chickening out with Joe Rogan. That's not all! Arnold Swarzenegger and Buzz Aldrin climb into this episode's Battle Box. Don't forget to stay for the Garbage Lounge afterwards. Subscribe to The Babylon Bee to get the whole episode: http://babylonbee.com/plans USE PROMOCODE 'PODCAST' Pre-order The Babylon Bee Guide To The Apocalypse and get the new Garbage For Trump t-shirt: http://shop.babylonbee.com USE PROMOCODE 'PODCAST' This episode is brought to you by our sponsor My Patriot Supply. Get prepared with the Bee at: http://PrepareWithBee.com  

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Time Text
The Babylon Bee Podcast.
Hey, everybody, and welcome to your favorite podcast, The Garbage Cast.
I am known piece of garbage.
Kyle Mann, the editor-in-chief of the Babylon B, and I'm hanging out with two of my favorite pieces of garbage, Jared LeMaster.
Hi.
Rubbish here.
And Travis.
I'm just normal trash.
You actually recycle.
Well, papers.
We just went over this.
You corrected me and said that recycling.
No, I know, but you're not.
It is trash, but it's not normal trash.
You're a special subset of trash.
Oh, you're right.
I'm the good.
You're like the hoity-toity.
Trash.
It is hoity-toity.
We never, I actually, can I admit this on the podcast?
I kind of barely separate my recycles.
I don't at all.
I just throw trash bags in the recycle bin, drag it out to the curb, and the guy takes it in.
I'm probably confessing to a crime.
I think I do too.
Or at least a code violation.
Code violation.
Literally, I do this.
I actually do recycle, but it's not so much out of like an abundance of caution for the environment.
It's more like the bourbon's right there.
Yeah.
I also don't think that recycling is actually good for the environment.
Yeah.
Or at least that the amount of energy expended to recycle something is always going to be greater than whatever benefit we get from recycling something.
That's interesting.
I'd kind of be interested in looking into the facts about it.
They've done some studies and they usually don't.
Usually it all ends up in the same place.
Sometimes it's a lot.
That's true.
Yeah.
What does Captain Planet and the Planeteers think about?
I mean, Cats and Planet would have a hard time.
It's time to combine our powers.
I forget what they said.
Form of heart.
You have heart.
Form of heart.
It doesn't say that's what it is.
No, fire, earth, water, wind, and then you get heart.
Care, but there's the worst.
It's like his, his power is like he can make dolphins follow him and stuff.
That's the fifth element.
Yeah, it is the fifth element.
It's love.
That's right.
Well, guys, thank you for joining us on the garbage cast today.
Go pre-order our book, shop.babylonbee.com, or you can go on Amazon, The Babylon Bee Guide to the Apocalypse coming out November 12th.
Go do that, and you'll know what to do when the world ends if Kamala Harris wins or if Trump wins and they burn the country down.
We'll all be garbage.
It seems like it's going to end either way.
And then go to Babylonbee.com slash January 6th to watch our new movie and subscribe.
For both of those things, you can use code podcast to save some money if you're garbage like us.
Hey, we also have a new t-shirt that says garbage for Trump.
And there's a MAGA hat on top of a trash can for the blind.
Where did we get those models?
The shirt is only for the blind.
Yeah.
Are those like stock models or are those people on the East Coast that are like, and you just change the shirt logo?
Yeah.
It's a weird thing that we do as a culture.
Yeah.
So buy the shirt at shop.babylonby.com and use code podcast.
And you too can be garbage.
So yes, with a week left to go before election day, President Biden in a Zoom call to get out the vote called Trump supporters garbage.
And then they later tried to walk it back and say, no, he didn't say Trump supporters.
He said Trump supporter apostrophe S garbage.
So he's suggesting that, oh, it's we have garbage?
He said he was kind of stumbling over his words and trying to say Trump supporters ideas are garbage.
It's still kind of the same thing.
And it's very clear to me, if you've ever heard Biden talk where he gets into this like, I'm the macho guy and I'm going to be aggressive.
It was very clear that what he was doing, he said something like, Trump called these Puerto Rican, Trump's comedian called this Puerto Rican garbage and Puerto Rico garbage.
And the only thing that's garbage is his supporters.
His supporters' garbage.
Yeah.
And then he just kind of went on about something else.
And I think maybe in the moment he realized, oh, maybe I shouldn't have said that.
He might have.
But I don't know if he cares that much anymore.
I actually think it's not, it seems to me like calling someone garbage is just as bad as calling them a deplorable.
But deplorable does seem like a better word.
I feel like, would I rather be garbage or a deplorable?
I'm not sure.
Well, I think deplorable implies that you can be redeemed and not be deplorable.
But garbage, you're just garbage.
But isn't maybe.
Unless you're hoarding toy garbage like me.
You can be recycled and you become trash.
Yeah.
You become my favorite character in all the toy stories, by the way.
Forky.
Forky.
He's the best.
I'm trash.
I like the shark.
You do?
Of all the characters?
Because he puts on Woody's hat and goes, Howdy, Ah, Moody.
Howdy, howdy.
And then he's, he's never heard from again the rest of the series.
Classic character.
He's classic.
Because something bad happens.
Yeah.
Well, guys, this podcast is probably the last podcast before the election because this is coming out Friday of any election.
Like, you know, of the whole world.
The most important election of our lifetimes.
Yes.
Absolutely.
So we'll see what happens.
It'll be interesting.
I know it's close on both sides.
We're going to talk a little bit to the guy who runs electionbettingods.com.
He's going to give us his definitive take on who will win and who will lose.
So if you feel like gambling, I don't recommend it.
But if you do, listen to that guy.
This is not gambling advice.
If you have a problem, call 1-800.
Gambling.
Trump's a good horse.
He's a good horse.
He's a good horse.
Good horse.
He's like, he's like, I'm the best horse.
Everyone says so.
I run faster than all the other horses.
Sea biscuit.
It's a bad name for a horse.
It's got to be something like all horses have bad names.
Mr. Edge.
Ocean bagel.
Well, they have to name so many of them because they're names.
I don't see anything.
Well, they don't live that long.
We'll call this one.
I don't know.
Wrench table.
Go wrench table.
Grass blanket.
Let me ask you a question.
Do you think our country is going in the right direction?
Or does it feel like everything's falling apart?
If you're feeling alarmed, you're not alone.
In fact, Americans from all walks of life have taken action to prepare for whatever's coming next.
And that starts with having an emergency food supply.
Storing food in your home is the right thing to do because we're living in crazy times, which explains why so many people are preparing.
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But when that day comes, you'll be ready.
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Go to preparewithbe.com and fight those darn dirty apes.
What's in the news this week?
All right.
So USA Today has joined the Washington Post and the LA Times in not endorsing Kambala Harris, not endorsing any candidate for president.
And this is the first time in their newspapers' respective histories where they haven't done that, I think.
Yeah, I think some of them maybe hadn't at certain points, but first time in a long time at least.
Washington Post says that they lost 200,000 of their 2.5 million subscribers.
Wow.
When they didn't for not endorsing Kamala.
So they only lost 200,000 of 2.5 million.
Well, that's like almost 10 million.
I mean, I guess that's 200,000 extreme.
Well, considering that's probably not enough subscribers for them anyway, considering how newspapers are always talking about how, oh, the newspaper industry is never enough.
It's never enough.
So they lost a big chunk for not having an opinion, which is weird, I think.
Yeah, for being journalists and trying to be objective.
Yeah.
I mean, my hot take is that I don't care if newspapers endorse or not.
I don't think they should because they're trying to be objective.
Oh, I agree with that.
Yeah.
But obviously they aren't objective.
Yeah.
Haven't been for a long time.
But now they're pretending to be objective because Kamala is such a bad candidate.
I think that's what's going on.
They're like, see, we're objective because she's terrible.
But if you're trying to read this newspaper to get the news of what's happening in the day and you want it to be unbiased, why would you want your newspaper to endorse a candidate?
Because then they're just coming out and saying, you already know they're biased, but they're coming out and saying, we want this person to win.
Yeah, it's just, it's just a weird concept.
I don't know why newspapers ever did that.
I mean, I know they have a division between editorial board, opinion pieces, and then like what's supposed to be the objective news, but you know, that's not a real division.
Like that's not a real division.
Not anymore.
Yeah.
If it ever was.
But also, it's not like they went.
Our editorial board endorses this.
It's always the newspaper itself.
Yeah.
It's sometimes I say editorial board, but yeah, you're right.
I mean, there's, it's, it's a real fuzzy line between those things.
But you know, the good news is that Arnold Schwarzenegger is voting for Kamala.
He endorsed her.
Ah, he says that Trump just divides and causes anger.
See, he would say it like, Trump just divides and causes anger.
I knew that we wouldn't be able to put an Arnold Schwarzenegger story in here without Jarret doing an accident.
Well, just that was Jarrett?
I thought Arnold was here.
Arnold was here.
I'm actually terrible.
For our audio listeners, Arnold Schwarzenegger has walked into the room.
Hello, I'm Arnold Schwarzenegger.
Trump responded to this by saying, I'll be back.
And he said it like that.
He said it just like that.
I'll be back.
I'll be back.
Yeah.
But counterpoint, Apollo 11 astronaut Buzz Aldrin, who is a real life superhero, not just one on TV.
That's a good point.
He endorsed Trump.
This is how I decide.
This is how I'm undecided.
I'm an undecided voter.
And how I decide is I like look at each celebrity endorsement and I'm like, Arnold Schwarzenegger.
Maybe I should vote for Kamala.
And then it's like, Buzz Aldrin.
I'm like, wow.
I know.
On the other hand, Lizzo.
And I'm like, oh, Lizzo.
And that really weighs it down.
Because Arnold and Lizzlo, they probably weigh the same.
Just Arnold is made of muscle.
And then I'm like, ah, the MyPillow guy.
But he's light as a feather.
That's true.
So it doesn't even help.
The Lizzo side is still way down here.
Mel Gibson.
Yeah.
He did say she had the IQ of a fence post.
And then Zach Levi.
Boom.
Boom.
Only because of his work Entangled.
Only because he cried on Megan Kelly.
I'll be honest, I keep forgetting he does the voice entangled.
That is the first thing I think of when I think of Zach Levi.
It's Tangled.
Isn't that weird?
Do you know Zach says weird?
Zach says that's his like best work.
This is Magnum Opus.
Yes, he does.
He says, he says it's great.
And the TV series in particular.
Yeah, the TV series.
It's actually really good, apparently.
Ever After or something?
What's it called?
Tangled?
Tangled Ever After, maybe.
Something like that.
Tangled Forever.
It's not homosexual?
I don't think so.
Okay.
I mean, that sounds weird out of context, but I mean, because the Disney shows me, Max.
10 years ago.
It was before.
Yeah.
Okay.
Before homosexuality.
Before homosexuality was invented.
Before the Bible and correct.
Oh, okay.
Retranslate.
Then it's great.
I should watch it.
Yeah.
But 1947.
Barbara Bush endorsed Harris.
Oh, I thought she was dead.
And that's surprising.
What is George Bush?
Who is he going to vote for?
W?
Barbara is the W one.
It's actually W's.
I thought Barbara was senior.
Barbara Bush is the woman or the?
Barbara Bush was.
Who's Barbara Bush?
H.W. Bush's.
She was the first lady.
But this is G.W. W named his daughter after her, Barbara Bush.
Dan just typed in the notes, the old one died.
Oh, W's daughter.
So she's what, like 20?
That's a much more succinct explanation.
W's daughter has to be in her 20s.
So W's daughter.
No, she's way older than her 20s.
She was a teenager when he was in office.
Yeah, but he was kind of a young president, wasn't he?
But it doesn't matter.
Maybe she's in her 40s.
Yeah, I bet she's in her 40s.
Yeah, you're probably right.
40s.
At any rate, I think we're both wrong.
We're all wrong because Barbara Bush looks like Seth Dylan.
Yeah, look at this preview that Twitter pulled for this Barbara Bush endorses Harris story.
Somehow it got confused because we actually released a video where we said that we endorsed Kamala Harris and Seth delivered the message to everybody.
Quite well.
Quite well.
And Twitter got confused because that video was like trending and super viral on Twitter and it pulled it as the image.
Barbara Bush.
Because both stories kind of at the same time.
They both said like endorses Harris.
They were both going up and then Twitter's AI was like, yeah, this must be Barbara Bush.
So as an objective news organization, why did we endorse a candidate?
Because we are the most truthist.
Oh.
Also, all the positive.
So we like people want to hear what our opinion is.
Obviously.
Seems like Harris has a lot of great qualities, too.
Melanin.
She's a woman.
She needed, we needed to point those out.
She, her.
Lots of melanin.
There's a lot of melanin.
Melatonin.
Yeah.
All right, it's time now for us to enter the battle box.
In America, we resolve our difference at the battle box.
You know, that's how we do it.
At the battle box, not with bullets.
One thing enters, and then one other thing enters, and only one thing leaves.
They go in in order.
Separate.
Polite.
One opens the door for the other.
One thing enters.
Today.
Thank you.
Today's battle box is Arnold Schwarzenegger versus Buzz Aldrin.
And in the battle box, we pick which one of these we like better or wins or something.
Yeah, and the other one dies.
Okay.
Okay.
So both of these men will enter the battle box and only one will leave with his life.
Yeah.
So one's an actor and the other is a super patriot who literally walked on the moon.
Okay, so Arnold Schwarzenegger is 77 years old.
Buzz Aldrin is 94 years old.
Okay.
Okay.
So Buzz is older.
Okay.
He's had a longer life.
Arnold traveled through time to save the leader of the human resistance against the machines.
It seems important.
Buzz Aldrin walked on the moon.
Come with me if you want to live.
Probably equally important.
Arnold Schwarzenegger killed a predator.
Okay.
Buzz Aldrin once dressed like this.
So for our audio-only listeners, it's a picture of Buzz Aldrin saluting while wearing American flag socks, shorts, a Mount Rushmore shirt, holding an American flag, and apparently wearing some weird antenna that looks like American flags.
American flag antennae.
Yeah.
Wait, so is he an alien?
Is that his true form?
Well, he did go to the moon.
A lot can happen when you're out there.
Maybe he got bit.
He got bit.
He's a hybrid now.
He got bit by an alien.
Arnold Schwarzenegger started in the hit comedy Junior opposite Danny DeVito, where he played a pregnant man.
Progressive.
Wow.
That's interesting.
And Buzz Aldrin, meanwhile, punched a man who accused him of never walking on the moon.
That's a cool story.
Progress.
Sounds rational.
Arnold Schwarzenegger was an adequate governor of California.
You know, but compared to Newsom, he was the best governor.
Yeah, probably ever.
Buzz Aldrin has a Toy Story character named after him, the shark.
Yeah, Buzz the Shark.
Yeah.
And Arnold Schwarzenegger, Total Recall?
Would Buzz Altrin be able to kill a Predator?
That's another good point.
Undoubtedly.
So sure.
Who wins?
Yeah, what do you think?
That's a good question.
I think it's pretty even, except Arnold Schwarzenegger was in Total Recall, which led to the Total Recall reboot.
Oh, with Colin Farrell.
Yeah.
And I think that tips it in favor of Buzz Aldrin.
You did not like the reboot.
I actually did not hate it.
But Colin Farrell is very strange, a strange actor to me.
He never looks like he's in the time that he's supposed to be in.
He always looks like a late 20th century businessman that is all of a sudden in ancient Rome.
That's true.
No, it's because his hair is always the same.
He just has that look.
I'm like, this is an interesting, very specific look.
I'm very, I'm with you on this.
I feel like every time I see Colin, it's really like he just went to Super Cuts and then he's got a fade.
He does look like a Super Cuts Super Cuts model.
Yeah.
And then, but then now he's like Alexander the Great with a Super Cuts hairdo.
Yeah.
But now he's although Penguin doesn't even look like himself.
But they had to do so much makeup because otherwise you'd be like, oh, that guy looks like he belongs in Rome.
Why is Colin Farrell in goth?
And why is this 21-year-old kid playing this character?
Because he looks the same age.
He's been the same age.
I'm like, oh, it's World War II.
There's Colin Farrell.
He was also in the remake for Fright Night, which was not as good as the original.
Oh.
But to your point, he looks like a 20-year-old kid.
He does.
He's a vampire.
Maybe he is.
That's probably why they cast him.
Well, he's probably really old, and that's how he got a good idea.
So it sounds like we're all agreed that Colin Farrell wins the Battle Box.
Yeah.
Oh, Colin Farrell has won.
So he just appeared and you're like, hey, what's Colin Farrell doing in the Battle Box?
Over Buzz Lightyear?
Well, it's like a wrestling match.
He just went in and just like with a chair.
All right, the winner is Colin Farrell.
So Trump went on Rogan for three hours, and it was hilarious.
I mean, lots of boring parts, but also lots of funny parts.
And it was just, he just seemed like a normal dude who was talking to Joe Rogan, which I thought was cool.
Yeah.
I listened to some clips.
It's so long.
I didn't.
Yeah, I realized something.
I agree.
But I think he did compliment Joe Rogan a lot.
It was interesting.
He's like, you're very interesting.
You're a very interesting guy.
It's like, who are you?
I don't think you're going to be able to do it.
Have you ever done this before?
Is this your first time?
Yeah.
It's amazing.
It's pretty good for your first time.
And he said during the interview with Trump, Trump said something like, Can you imagine Kamala coming on the show?
She would be a mess.
She would be on the floor.
She'd be curled up in the corner.
And Rogan was like, he's trying to get Kamala on the show.
And he's like, no, I would imagine.
You should talk to her like a normal person.
And apparently she like quote unquote, quote unquote, agreed to come on the show.
But part of the agreement was Rogan has to fly to her and I'll do maybe an hour.
Yeah.
And Rogan's like, well, that's not my show.
My show is a three-hour show and I film it here at my studio.
And I think she wanted to have some topics just off the table.
Yeah, it's just like what?
And he's like, not wearing a show.
Well, if he had to go to her, she could set up all of her teleprompters everywhere around her.
That's probably true.
So she could kind of control the environment.
That's what she was worried about.
Or at very least, they're like, well, maybe she can survive like 45 to 60 minutes.
Yeah, with her kind of memorized can talking points or just hold a normal conversation.
I feel like Joe Rogan wouldn't let her do that.
That's as many words.
I don't think he would just interrupt her.
That's as many words as she knows.
Yeah, it tells about it.
It's not even like he's this like harsh investigative journal.
So it's like, ah, tell me, you know, he just calls out the just asks questions and he's like, well, yeah, no, because this and blah, blah, blah.
He's just a normal conversation with somebody, you know, where you're allowed to question viewpoints.
I think that's what makes this podcast really work, actually.
Yeah.
And I mean, it's, you could argue it's too long because people don't listen to the whole thing, or some people don't, like me.
But because it's so long, you're guaranteed to get several moments in there.
Like I said, little breakout clips with the most interesting moment.
With the most famous people in the world, it's traditionally been really hard to sit down and talk to them for that long.
And when you get past a certain point, then you really kind of get to the real person.
And so I think it's a really interesting format just for that.
The problem is when you're Kamala Harris and you're not a real person, there is still a real person underneath.
There's a lizard person.
Yeah.
So do you think we should start doing a three-hour podcast?
That's what we're doing.
I don't know.
No one told me that.
We got two hours and 40 minutes left.
So yeah.
I mean, you missed the best episode of The View.
Do Rogan podcast guests get to go to the bathroom?
I don't know.
I think it's.
I've heard they do.
Oh, okay.
I've actually heard they would be my only problem talking to Rogan for three hours.
I know.
Yeah.
You'd have to pee all the time.
So would I in the agreement before you go?
Like, I need a signed affidavit saying I can go to the bathroom.
Yeah.
Affidavit's not the right word.
But I'll take it.
Here's a signed affidavit.
He's like, this doesn't apply here at all.
But I have it.
It's from a doctor.
Well, we watch the view, so you don't have to.
Yeah.
Whoopi Goldberg went on an unhinged rant that Donald Trump is going to break up interracial marriages.
What?
Deport all the wives.
What?
And put the white guy with someone else.
Yeah.
And he's going to reinstate Prima Nocta.
Oh, man.
Yeah.
She was, she was nuts.
Um, because obviously there's a big part of the campaign: hey, we're going to deport illegal aliens, which ironically, Kamala Harris is saying she will do.
Also, um, but that's okay.
And she's saying, by virtue of that, oh, if even if it's a mixed marriage, you're going to get split up.
They're not going to just say, oh, you're white, you're illegal wife.
That's what she's talking about.
She's saying they're going to split up the mixed marriages.
Well, so wait.
So a marriage of an illegal alien to a person who lives here that's a citizen.
Oh, that gives them that gives them a green.
Oh, yeah.
That doesn't even make sense.
It gives them a green card.
That's how you get a green.
I learned that from Gerard Debardieu.
I learned that from my friend who married an illegal alien.
Was that Gerard Debardieu?
And she divorced him later.
Yeah, after she got her green card.
Sorry, it's not funny.
Good news for Dwayne Wade, the famous NBA player, who was a three-time champion with the Miami Heat and a 13-time NBA all-star.
He got a statue.
Wow, that's great.
That's a good deal.
I wish I would get a statue.
Yeah.
You're not going to, we're not going to do that.
Like a bronze one.
It doesn't have to be bronze.
I mean, what if you're in the car?
We could Photoshop into his statue.
Oh, okay.
I'll take it instead of a grave.
Just like bronze yourself.
So let's take a look at the statue.
Oh, my goodness.
If they ever make a bronze statue of me, I hope they increase my jawline like they did to him.
Yeah.
So it doesn't look anything like him.
Kyle, can you describe it for our blind listeners?
It kind of looks like Frasier Crane.
But his mouth is open is open wide enough to consume all existence.
And he oddly looks Chinese, I think.
Yeah, and yells a little bit of Chinese.
His eyes are kind of looks like an angry Chinese guy.
He's yelling and he's pointing down.
Yeah.
Pointing down to the devil.
I'm going to send you there.
I'll send you right to 80s.
Yes.
It does look more like Larry Fishburne.
Yeah, it kind of looks like the Matrix guy.
Yeah.
So, yeah, the new picture is the poster for the original Matrix, but they replaced Morpheus's head with, you guessed it, whoever this guy is.
And he actually reacted to the statue unveiling.
He said, that's crazy.
I can't believe it.
Who is that guy?
Who's that guy?
Oh, man.
He does look like he's going to eat you.
It doesn't look like he's like, yeah, it looks like.
It looks like he's going to eat.
Yeah, yeah, that's right.
Yeah.
It reminds me of your soul.
It reminds me of the moon from Majora's Mask.
Yeah.
Not so much to look, but I shall consume.
The fact that it's slowly says in the same way that it's slowly approaching the earth over 72 hours.
Just like the statue.
Just like the statue.
I'll swallow your soul back.
Yes.
Well, guys, we're about to talk to Maxim Lott, who will tell us that Trump has 100% chance of winning.
Maybe.
It's a sure thing, possibly.
Let's see what he has to say about election betting odds.
Call your bookie today.
And now it's time for another interview on the Babylon B Podcast.
All right.
Well, thank you so much for coming on.
Hey, thank you.
So, you know, the crazy shadowy world of election betting.
Do I just go find someone behind 7-Eleven and he's got a trench coat?
And I'm like, I slip him a $5 bill and I'm like, hey, you know, I want five bucks on the VEC.
Basically, 10 to 1 on 3.
It's cryptocurrency these days, but otherwise, yeah.
Otherwise, so you are the shady guy in the trench coat.
Is that correct?
So more than $2 billion has been bet on the election so far.
No way.
I don't believe it.
Wow.
Yeah.
Most of it on a crypto-based site called Polymarket.
Okay.
So maybe that's the online equivalent of the trench coat thing.
They only take bets from overseas officially.
And because of regulations, there are other regulated places in the U.S.
And my website, electionbettingodds.com, it aggregates all these different sites, which now have different odds because the people trading crypto, they're more optimistic on Trump than the people in DC who are trading on another site called Predicted.
My site puts them all together in an average.
Now, is there a minimum buy-in when you gamble on like presidential races or I guess any sort of politics?
There is no minimum buy-in.
You can bet $5 on some of these sites.
Yeah, you can bet $25 million as someone in France did recently.
25 cents?
Who did the 20?
What did he put the $25 million on?
He put it on Trump.
Wow.
So this was a little bit of a controversy in the news.
Someone trying to manipulate the odds.
It turns out he's just a regular investor guy in France and he thinks Trump's going to win.
But the markets are big enough that they could absorb this 25 million.
And yeah, it's still, there are people on the other side of that bet, too.
Oh my gosh.
Okay.
So it's actually illegal to bet on the presidential election in the U.S. Is that what you were saying?
It's complicated.
Just a few, yeah, a few weeks ago, a court said it's legal for now.
So people can bet on Calci.com.
They can bet on predicted.com.
Americans can legally trade there.
But there are other sites that haven't sued the government and they're working in crypto overseas in England.
It's a complicated legal landscape.
The Biden administration has officially written a regulation to ban it.
It's not in effect yet, but they want to do that.
Okay.
So, how are betting odds calculated?
So, it's like I could make a bet with you right now about who's going to win.
And if we have even odds, like I get 10 bucks if Trump wins, you get 10 bucks if Harris wins.
That would indicate, imply 50%.
If we change it and I get 20 bucks if Trump wins and you get 10 if Harris wins, that would imply like two-thirds odds that Harris would win those odds.
So you can just calculate it.
Yeah, do the odds change based on how many people are like putting money down on Trump versus like the polls, or does it do the polls influence it at all?
That's like a stock market for candidates.
That's the best way to think about it.
So, yeah, if more people and more money is trading on one side, that'll change it.
The polls only matter to the extent that that changes who I or you want to bet on.
And they definitely look at polls, but they look at lots of other things too.
The betting odds in the last month, they spiked a lot earlier.
Nate Silver's model and the polls have been brailling the betting odds.
So the bettors saw this coming, which is impressive.
So Trump's increase coming, which he's gone up from like 45% to like above 60% in his odds.
Okay.
Can you explain that using Pokemon characters?
Yeah.
Like if I was betting on Pikachu against Onyx, what would those odds be?
No one's betting against Onix.
Well, it's the type difference.
I was a Pokemon trader as a kid, too.
So yeah, I also stopped playing Pokemon after I began to go up, obviously.
Put away childish things.
Yeah.
So like, okay, like Hillary Clinton was supposed to win Wisconsin by like a billion points.
Do we look at election betting odds as more accurate than traditional polls in some way?
The betting odds got that race wrong too.
They had, they gave Trump 20% going into 2016 and he won.
But what's interesting is I've tracked these, all the races since 2015, even like Senate and state and governor.
And if you put them all together, you can see that whenever the odds say someone has like a 70 to 80% chance, just for example, they actually win 75% of the time.
So like they're very well calibrated to what's going to happen.
So when they say 20% chance, yeah, it'll probably happen one in five times.
And that's what happened in 2016.
That long shot came through.
Is there a concern that the mafia is going to pay off Trump so he'll intentionally throw the race and cause everyone who voted for Kamala to win like gangbusters?
There is.
There is $2 billion on the line.
But, you know, there's actually even more on the line when you consider stocks that have a big tie to the election, like Trump's stock, you know, for his social site, Truth Social, that is more than doubled in the last month.
And that's kind of following the betting odds.
It's people saying if he wins, this is going to be more valuable.
Though you can also look at these other market indicators.
Okay.
That's interesting.
That would be known as the Orange Sock scandal.
Yep.
Thank you for the chuckle.
There's kind of this narrative that goes around that polls are just made up or, you know, they're just trying to manipulate the populace.
Like if my candidate's down 3 billion points, then I don't need to bother voting.
Or, like, maybe if my candidate is up a billion points, then we got this in the bag.
I'm going to stay home.
Is there any truth to that?
Or like, are the pollsters?
Do the pollsters kind of try to do a good job?
There's such a crazy variance when you look at some of the different polls.
I don't really even know which way is up when I look at that stuff.
It's a good question.
What we know is that they have underestimated Trump both the last times he ran.
They underestimated him a little bit less in 2020.
So the question now is: have they fixed that bias or not?
Even if they've not fixed the bias, the polls are slightly leaning Trump right now.
So that's reason for optimism.
You know, for Trump, I was looking at the state map and some states like Georgia, North Carolina, Nevada, more than half of all total voters based on last time have already voted now.
So like the early vote is huge.
And the betters, I think, are already looking at that.
Those states, they give Trump about a 70% chance of winning now.
And I think they're looking at the patterns, like which counties are turning in their votes, whether Republicans or Democrats are.
And so far, that's looking quite good for Trump in those states.
So what was the origin story for creating this website that you and John Stasa got together?
Is it because he has a crippling gambling addiction?
Or what made you guys decide to throw it together?
I think John has said, you know, if there's like a raindrop going down the window, he'd bet on that.
So, you know, we do, we do like, we like markets.
We like markets.
These harness the power of markets to predict the future accurately.
And so we've been covering these markets since 2007.
And what happened was in 2012, the government, as they frequently do, they shut down the site.
They said, oh, you took American customers.
That's against the law.
And they shut down this site that we love.
And after that, the remaining sites, they express their odds in these really hard to read formats.
It'd be like, you know, Trump 3.25.
It's like, what does that mean?
You have to divide and add one.
And so I kept doing this in an Excel sheet because we would be reporting on the election, like what, and Excel, converting it to percentages.
And eventually I was like, you know what?
I could just automate this and then put it on a website.
And so I did that.
And that's blown up since then.
Yeah, we've got like 25 million unique views since then.
So you've been busy.
All right, let's say that I'm a French man and I have five bucks or a croissant, five francs.
And I wanted to bet this croissant on the election.
Who do you think I should bet on?
Give us the sure thing.
My money's on Trump.
Just whether you look at the polls or the early voting or the vibe, it seems to be towards him.
Of course, it's not a sure bet.
The odds have him at 60, above 60% right now.
That means if you re-ran the election 100 times, you know, about 60 out of those times, Trump would win, 40, he would lose.
That's, you'd rather be Trump than Harris, but that's not a lot of confidence either.
There are 40 universes in the multiverse where Kamala Harris wins, but only one where Trump won't.
But only one of the 14 million where Trump gets the time stone right and wins.
That's terrible odds.
That's not good.
But it sounds good, though.
60 is good.
He doesn't actually have one.
60.
So if you are going to gamble on a political race, is this something that you only do online or do like casinos have any presence with that?
Like, if I go to a Trump casino and vote for and bet on Kamala Harris, will I get arrested?
Your thoughts?
It's a good question.
Yeah.
You know, you can go to Atlantic City for those, I guess.
The Trump, the casinos, I think they're a very small player in this.
I think there are places in Vegas you can go up in person and throw money on it.
But online is where the real action's happening.
More than $2 billion with a B.
So, yeah, that's where the action's happening.
All right.
Let's go to Trump Hotel.
Yeah.
I mean, well, is that a conflict of interest if you go to a Trump hotel and bet on Trump?
I don't know.
I don't know.
I guess.
Like, what if you go there and he's like, you can only bet on me?
Yeah.
It's not allowed.
Yeah.
So you've mentioned the amount of money that's involved right now, but is there like how many people is that?
Like, what does that represent?
Do you know?
That's a good question.
I haven't seen stats on that, but it's got to be more than 100,000.
Yeah.
So it's not, it's not just a couple of people in a smoky room anymore.
It's like the real stock market.
You know, the history of this is interesting too.
Like 100 years ago, newspapers actually reported on betting just as much or more than they did on polls.
And the betting on elections was a big thing.
We have data going back more than 100 years on it.
And then polls kind of were the new scientific thing.
Oh, this is so cool.
And now betting is making a comeback again.
And it should be because it has a great track record and markets, they're good at lots of things.
They're good at allocating resources.
And they're just as good at predicting the future.
All right.
Well, you guys, you heard it from him.
Trump is definitely going to win.
100%.
Sure thing.
Sure thing.
We heard it from him.
In 60 multiverses.
Well, correct.
But if we need to get, if we want the YouTube title that's really going to sell it, it's going to be like, here's why this expert thinks Trump will definitely win.
Yeah.
So that's what we're going to frame this as.
But anyway, absolutely.
Well, so we're going to media too.
So I get it.
Where can people follow your work and learn more about what you're doing?
I've got a substat called Maximum Truth.
That's where I do all my data deep dives and stuff.
So that's the best place to follow me.
MaximumTruth.org.
I'm also on Twitter at Maxim Lott.
And I've got, of course, electionbettingouts.com.
That's where you can see who's going to win live.
Fantastic.
All right, everybody, check it out.
We'll put all the links in the show notes.
Thanks so much for coming on.
All right.
Well, that was interesting.
That's cool.
Good to know that Maxim Lott has said that Trump will definitely win.
That was good.
And we'll crush Kamala with facts and logic and logic.
Yeah.
All right, guys.
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