Think It's Going to be Hillary vs. McCain in 2008? Don't Bet On It!
Jan 30, 2007 Filed in: Politics
Even though it’s (sort of) illegal, any time
there’s a contest of any sort, someone is going
to be taking bets on it.
Probably the most famous gambler still living is Thomas “Amarillo Slim” Preston Jr. Slim, who gained fame with his victory at the World Series of Poker in 1972, and went on to become notorious for taking just about any bet. Among his victories: He beat Minnesota Fats at pool played with broom handles; beat Evel Knievel at golf played with claw hammers; won $300,000 from Willie Nelson by beating him at a game of Dominoes; and won a sucker bet that he could hit a golf ball a mile—which he did on a frozen lake. He also won a bet in 2000 by correctly picking George W. Bush to win the presidency. But did he break the law in making that bet? Popular wisdom has it that it’s against the law to bet on the outcome of elections, a “known known” (as Donald Rumsfeld would say) that nobody bothers to check, because everybody knows it to be true. Except that it’s false. Sort of.
In fact, several jurisdictions do ban betting on the outcome of an election. The District of Columbia, for example, specifically prohibits betting on “contests,” but it is a law never enforced. About the only example of anyone actually brought to justice for betting on an election occurred in Arizona in the mid-1990s, when two elderly men, Jack Bird and Loft Hollamon, were brought up on charges of offering a wager on an election. Their crime caught the attention of authorities because they took out advertisements in the newspaper, in which they each urged voters to vote for their favorite so that they would win the bet. But even with that level of blatant disrespect for the Arizona law, Superior Court Judge Richard Anderson threw the case out as unconstitutional, and called gambling the “favorite national pastime.” An Arizona State Court of Appeals later reversed that ruling, deciding that the state is allowed to prohibit wagering on elections in order to maintain the integrity of the act of voting. By this time in 1995 both men had spent tens of thousands of dollars on legal fees, far more than the maximum $750 fine, and the case was eventually dropped by the Yavapai County attorney.
At the federal level, the Supreme Court has weighed in on two occasions in the last century. A 1973 Supreme Court case, Civil Service Commission v. Letter Carriers cited a 1939 civil service form that provides: “Betting or wagering upon the results of primary and general elections is penalized by the laws of most States and is improper political activity.” Hardly a stern and decisive admoniton. More recently, former Chief Justice and avid gambler William Rehnquist more accurately described the Court's opinion of betting on elections by organizing a betting pool wagering the state by state outcome of the 1992 presidential election. White, Scalia and Souter all recused themselves, but the remaining six justices enjoyed a lively contest, in which Sandra Day O’Connor was the clear winner, collecting $18.30. (Harry Blackmun was the only other winner, garnering $1.70. The remaining four justices had to pony up, losing a total of $20.)
In any case, even if a particular jurisdiction decided to repeat Yavapai County’s experiment with electoral justice, most gambling on elections is done online, and most of the hosts are outside the scope of US law. There’s not much to the mechanics of the betting: There are plenty of online houses that will take your credit card information and place your bet for you. It works just like football; the farther in advance you place your bet, or the more narrow your wager, the better the payoff will be if you turn out to be right. If you want to bet on the Bears today, if they win or if they lose by less than seven points, you’ll win the exact amount of the bet (put in two bucks, walk away with your two and two more). If you want to have a larger payoff, bet on the specific score that will occur. Or, if you had made your bet back in August, your payoff would be many times your wager. So what are the odds of a Hillary Clinton victory in 2008? Five to one (bet one dollar to win five more). John McCain is slightly ahead, running at nine to two, Giuliani and Romney at ten to one, Al Gore—who hasn’t even said he is running—at twenty to one, and recently defeated ex-Senator George Allen at a hundred to one. Want a chance at making some really big money? Bet on filmmaker Michael Moore; the payoff is ten thousand to one. Just don’t bet your life savings. And if you do bet on any candidate or potential candidate, don’t advertise the fact in the newspaper. You never know who might be reading.
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Probably the most famous gambler still living is Thomas “Amarillo Slim” Preston Jr. Slim, who gained fame with his victory at the World Series of Poker in 1972, and went on to become notorious for taking just about any bet. Among his victories: He beat Minnesota Fats at pool played with broom handles; beat Evel Knievel at golf played with claw hammers; won $300,000 from Willie Nelson by beating him at a game of Dominoes; and won a sucker bet that he could hit a golf ball a mile—which he did on a frozen lake. He also won a bet in 2000 by correctly picking George W. Bush to win the presidency. But did he break the law in making that bet? Popular wisdom has it that it’s against the law to bet on the outcome of elections, a “known known” (as Donald Rumsfeld would say) that nobody bothers to check, because everybody knows it to be true. Except that it’s false. Sort of.
In fact, several jurisdictions do ban betting on the outcome of an election. The District of Columbia, for example, specifically prohibits betting on “contests,” but it is a law never enforced. About the only example of anyone actually brought to justice for betting on an election occurred in Arizona in the mid-1990s, when two elderly men, Jack Bird and Loft Hollamon, were brought up on charges of offering a wager on an election. Their crime caught the attention of authorities because they took out advertisements in the newspaper, in which they each urged voters to vote for their favorite so that they would win the bet. But even with that level of blatant disrespect for the Arizona law, Superior Court Judge Richard Anderson threw the case out as unconstitutional, and called gambling the “favorite national pastime.” An Arizona State Court of Appeals later reversed that ruling, deciding that the state is allowed to prohibit wagering on elections in order to maintain the integrity of the act of voting. By this time in 1995 both men had spent tens of thousands of dollars on legal fees, far more than the maximum $750 fine, and the case was eventually dropped by the Yavapai County attorney.
At the federal level, the Supreme Court has weighed in on two occasions in the last century. A 1973 Supreme Court case, Civil Service Commission v. Letter Carriers cited a 1939 civil service form that provides: “Betting or wagering upon the results of primary and general elections is penalized by the laws of most States and is improper political activity.” Hardly a stern and decisive admoniton. More recently, former Chief Justice and avid gambler William Rehnquist more accurately described the Court's opinion of betting on elections by organizing a betting pool wagering the state by state outcome of the 1992 presidential election. White, Scalia and Souter all recused themselves, but the remaining six justices enjoyed a lively contest, in which Sandra Day O’Connor was the clear winner, collecting $18.30. (Harry Blackmun was the only other winner, garnering $1.70. The remaining four justices had to pony up, losing a total of $20.)
In any case, even if a particular jurisdiction decided to repeat Yavapai County’s experiment with electoral justice, most gambling on elections is done online, and most of the hosts are outside the scope of US law. There’s not much to the mechanics of the betting: There are plenty of online houses that will take your credit card information and place your bet for you. It works just like football; the farther in advance you place your bet, or the more narrow your wager, the better the payoff will be if you turn out to be right. If you want to bet on the Bears today, if they win or if they lose by less than seven points, you’ll win the exact amount of the bet (put in two bucks, walk away with your two and two more). If you want to have a larger payoff, bet on the specific score that will occur. Or, if you had made your bet back in August, your payoff would be many times your wager. So what are the odds of a Hillary Clinton victory in 2008? Five to one (bet one dollar to win five more). John McCain is slightly ahead, running at nine to two, Giuliani and Romney at ten to one, Al Gore—who hasn’t even said he is running—at twenty to one, and recently defeated ex-Senator George Allen at a hundred to one. Want a chance at making some really big money? Bet on filmmaker Michael Moore; the payoff is ten thousand to one. Just don’t bet your life savings. And if you do bet on any candidate or potential candidate, don’t advertise the fact in the newspaper. You never know who might be reading.
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