Election betting sites will invest money in social media advertising in the future

While recent polls suggest the presidential election could be close, some social media advertisements paint a very different picture.

In some ads for online betting platform Polymarket, graphics illustrate former President Donald Trump's “up to 32% odds” lead over Vice President Kamala Harris and claim the service is “the most accurate way to track the election.”

However, what Polymarket doesn't always reveal beyond its advertisements is that the percentages it displays are actually tabulated odds based on bets placed on its service, rather than predictions based on representative voter surveys. Well over half of the ads do not mention that the numbers are based on prediction-based markets.

“The idea is that people who disagree with the market price have the opportunity to capitalize on it by buying the side that they believe is too low,” Polymarket CEO Shayne Coplan explained in a statement Social media post.

“Don’t trust the polls – trust the markets,” some of the platform’s ads say.

Social media advertising has platforms like Facebook, Instagram and

According to the Meta Ad Library, an ad that has been viewed more than 900,000 times on Facebook and Instagram since Oct. 28 shows Trump winning the Polymarket odds. Among the viewers, 20% are men between the ages of 45 and 54 and 12% are women of the same age. The ad was most viewed in California, New York and Texas, with 16%, 11% and 10% of viewers in those regions, respectively.

Some others include questions like “Did serving fries help Trump's chances?” or “Does Trump have all the aura?” Many of the 45 meta ads contain single images of Trump, some contain images of both candidates side by side, and none contain single images of Harris.

A separate campaign sponsored by right-wing social media personality Shaneyy Richh included nine ads promoting Polymarket's forecasts.

“The full list of actual conservatives polled by political pollsters,” one ad said, showing a man squinting at a small piece of paper. “Are you tired of biased surveys? Find out what’s really happening in the 2024 race,” the caption reads.

On X – a platform owned by one of Trump's biggest supporters, Elon Musk – advertisements also promoted the predictions on the site's search page.

Polymarket, which offers betting on sports, business, science, politics and more, reports that users have spent more than $2.7 billion betting on the next president. According to an X post, one user bet $2.2 million on a Harris win.

Based on user bets, Polymarket says Trump's odds of winning are about 65.5% and Harris's odds are 34.5% as of October 31.

“The odds of winning on Polymarket are derived from the market price of a contract that pays $1 if an event occurs and expires worthless if it does not,” Polymarket said in a blog post. “For example, someone paying 60 cents for a Trump ‘yes’ contract means they have a 60 percent chance of winning.”

Not everyone places bets quickly or trusts Polymarket's system.

“Trump and right-wing influencers are touting these polymarket odds as a survey,” Claudio Vallejo, an online creator, said via a TikTok video. “They are using these opportunities as proof that Trump is peaking at the right moment and is so popular that there is no way he can lose in November… They are laying the groundwork for 'too big to manipulate.'

A company spokesman pointed to a “misunderstanding” by the company and explained that the statistics were not opinion polls, but rather odds calculated based on stocks traded on Polymarket. The odds are not intended to reflect public opinion, but rather reflect bettors' level of confidence in a Trump or Harris win.

“A major point of confusion is that both vote share and odds of winning are expressed as percentages, but do not mean the same thing,” Polymarket wrote on its Substack page.

Coplan recently defended himself to

“Polymarket is not about politics,” he wrote in a statement posted Oct. 25 on “Feeds, experts and conflicting polls – we take this responsibility seriously… Hopefully politics is the first step in getting the masses on board “To recognize the value of market-based forecasts.”

Although the ads are trending in the United States, according to Polymarket's terms and conditions, “US persons”, i.e. any citizens or even temporary residents, are prohibited from participating in the bets.

Currently, Polymarket requires bettors to accept the terms and conditions certifying that they are “not a resident, national or representative of the United States” or several other countries where the platform is regulated.

In 2022, Polymarket was fined $1.4 million by the Commodity Futures Trading Commission for illegally conducting event betting in the United States

A federal appeals court recently overturned the CFTC's decision to prohibit election betting operator Kalshi from restricting “U.S. persons” from placing bets on their markets – however, Polymarket was not part of that lawsuit and the law prohibiting betting on Polymarket still is in force. Kalshi's stats show a split between Trump and Harris of 59% and 41%, respectively. The company has also used social media to promote election bets, spending over $140,000 on meta ads, according to the company's advertising library.

While people in the US are not required to place their own bets, a Polymarket spokesperson explained why they believe their platform could be useful for Americans, saying the company acts as a live information source similar to the stock market .

The social media advertisement does not specifically encourage people in the United States to bet, but does not contain a disclaimer regarding the regulation.

Still, the site has caught the attention of many right-wing officials and celebrities, including Trump himself.

“We are pretty far ahead in the polls. They have a new phenomenon and that is a gambling survey. They call it the Poly poll or something I've never heard of,” Trump said at an Oct. 18 rally in Michigan as an audience member shouted “Polymarket” to correct him.

“Polymarket, and I guess it's 64 to 38, 36, something like that.” So that's not bad. I don’t know what the hell that means, but it means we’re doing pretty well,” he added.

Although Polymarket called Trump's reference to the company “confusing Polymarket odds with polls” a “common mistake,” a paid ad shared the rally clip with the caption: “They call it Pollypoll or something.”

The Instagram reel does not contain any similar clarification as in the blog post.

Musk also used X to split the predictions – then 67% and 33.1% for Trump and Harris, respectively. In another post, Musk said that Polymarket odds are “more accurate than surveys.”

A Nov. 3 NBC News poll found Harris and Trump deadlocked among respondents, each with 49% support among registered voters. Every major poll in the last week shows a split between the two candidates between 0 and 3 percentage points, with most differences within the margin of error.

Some experts urge caution when analyzing both the surveys and the markets.

“When you look at polls, you just expect real precision at a given point in time,” John Fortier, a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute who focuses on issues such as election demographics and voting, told NBC News last week. “It's not that we can't get good information … but if you really expect the polls to tell you … what will definitely happen next Tuesday, then of course there's just a built-in margin of error.”

Although Fortier notes that the financial risk associated with the markets can be viewed as a “more serious” gesture than a response to a survey, he emphasizes “real doubts” and warns that “the details matter.”

“I just see the possibility of further market distortion,” he said. “I’m skeptical in general, and then I’m even more skeptical about a market that is narrower but also excludes American citizens.”