Australian Bookmaker Pays Out $23M Biden Winnings
Australian sportsbook operator Sportsbet has decided to pay out all winnings on Joe Biden bets in the US Presidential Election 2020 markets. The company began processing payouts even despite a series of claims from the incumbent that results in three of the battleground states are rigged. Trump has been repeating this rhetoric despite producing no substantive evidence to back up his claims.
Betting volumes in Australia have been incredibly high when focusing on this month’s US Presidential Election. This was made possible due to the strict lockdown measures currently being endured across the country, with very few other sports to bet on. ©pattyjansen/Pixabay
The Sportsbet platform was one of the first in the country to call the election for Joe Biden, and began processing over $23M in payouts shortly after declaring him the winner. The bookmaker announced the payout was being made and emphasized the speed with which they are processing these payments. Along with this was a hint made about the future possibility of money to be made by punters.
The company made a Twitter post shortly after the initial results were made public in the United States, following the announcement they released the statistics of the vote on their main channel. This was followed by a little gag telling their audience to “get some sleep”. We can certainly relate, the 48 hours of drip-fed information coming out of the United States was painstaking, to say the least.
Betting on the US election was huge in Australia, and the sportsbooks all reported huge numbers from their betting volume metrics. Users were more actively engaged on the platform than for any other event of a similar magnitude. Many analysts in Australia have already stated that the betting figures on this election far-surpassed the performance of other similar events taking place over the past year.
Markets Are Now Closed for the Election
It would be easy to become confused at the confirmation of these election results, because on one hand you have the incumbent President refusing to acknowledge the democratic process, and on the other hand nearly all bookmakers in the world have paid out on Joe Biden winning bets. It is a crisis of misinformation and the global community refusing to share truths or a common narrative.
Those seeking to place late bets on the winner are now out of time, as the sportsbooks in Australia are now emblazoned with “markets are closed” for the US election betting options. The COVID-19 pandemic has thrown the whole process into a state of pandemonium, as the states are desperately trying to count the mail-in ballots in a fast and accurate way. All of this is happening whilst the world watches on.
It looked initially that Trump had taken a decisive lead in the race for the electoral college, especially after snatching the key swing-state trophy of Florida. He also maintained a strong repository of electoral college votes in Texas, but after the late surge of mail-in ballots which were predominately for Joe Biden arrived in Arizona and Michigan, the Democrat’s lead began to grow to an insurmountable scale.
Joe Biden now has surpassed the number of electoral college votes to secure a seat in the White House. The Trump campaign has not taken this defeat lying down though, and they continue to push forward a narrative that the election result is unverified, illegitimate, and cannot be taken at face value. They have demanded a recount in several states including Wisconsin, all of these claims of election fraud are spurious at best, and lack any solid evidence base that is yet to be put forward.
Trump Vows to Fight in Supreme Court
Despite the Australian betting sites announcing that the election has gone to Joe Biden, as well as multiple news agencies calling the result and foreign governments congratulating the winner. Trump still remains defiant. So far his claims have been largely just Twitter projections, but the looming threat of using the conservative-stacked Supreme Court to stage a coup is something many citizens and business leaders are afraid of.
With few other sports events to bet on in Australia, as the country endures a lockdown even worse than that in Wuhan, there is very little else to entertain Australian betting customers at the moment. Indeed, this period has proved to be a very profitable venture for sports betting sites in Australia. However, Australian bookies were nervous of a Trump win as they became very exposed financially to such an outcome.
The two biggest winners Sportsbet and Tabcorp have been making a massive load of cash and reported that the US election saw higher betting volumes than that of the Melbourne Cup or the National Rugby League final.
