Irish bookmaker Paddy Power was confident that Hillary Clinton will win the 2016 U.S. presidential elections that it has started paying out those who bet on the Democratic nominee days ahead of Election Day. Now, the betting site is having second thoughts regarding its generous decision.
In October, the bookmaker paid some 6,000 British and Irish gamblers who placed their bets on Clinton, noting that the Democrat has an 85.7 percent chance of winning the elections, while Republican nominee Donald Trump’s campaign is already dead with 18.2 percent chances of victory.
However, Clinton’s email scandal has returned to haunt her, which, in turn, has given Trump a boost in his odds of becoming the first “President Donny.”
“We’re not reaching for the rosary beads just yet but if money talks, and it usually does, it’s telling us that Trump still has a puncher’s chance and he’ll be leaving us with some very expensive egg on our face if he does manage to pull it off,” said Paddy Power spokesperson Féilim Mac An Iomaire, according to SBC News.
The race for the White House—dubbed as the “unpopularity contest”—narrowed with less than a week before Election Day as Clinton, who holds an early lead in some key swing states, sought to shake off the renewed FBI probe of her emails, according to an ABC News-Washington Post poll. Meanwhile, Donald Trump, who blitzed western states in the last days of the campaign season, faces a series of accusations that he had sexually assaulted the several women.
Clinton and Trump are considered to be the least popular presidential candidates in the history of American politics, according to sportsbook Pinnacle. In fact, Clinton has only seen her odds going as high as 1.667 before tracing back, while Trump’s price has reached a dizzying 6.91.
However, the U.S. elections has managed to attract a huge interest among bettors in the last eight years. Pinnacle said its betting volume on the U.S. election increased by 290 times between 2008 and 2016.
