Exit polling online betting conspiracy theory

[Ulysses]

I woke up this morning thinking about this.

If I were a source to or ran a blog where a lot of people went for exit polling results and I saw the following numbers in the early exit polls:

FL 52-48 Bush
OH 52-48 Bush

it would be very tempting for me to report the following numbers on/to the blog

FL 52-48 Kerry
OH 52-48 Kerry

and I could do the same thing across the board in other states, bumping up Kerry a couple of points everywhere. A few points on each one would be well within the margin of error, and I'd be sure to extensively talk about the margin of error and the inaccuracy of these polls when sharing this information.

However, I would know for sure that these types of initial numbers would be voraciously searched for and rapidly distributed across the Internet, especially by those participating in online betting markets.

This would guarantee me a huge profit twice as the market moved on this news and then on the actual results.

I spent some time looking at the betting sites yesterday. While these markets have been around for some time, we're really talking real money nowadays.

Thoughts?

[Gabe]

When the lines were changing so drastically to Kerry yesterday afternoon, I strongly suspected this. I just looked like manipulation. However, the campaigns and news organizations seem to have seen the same things, and probably got there information straight from the horse's mouth. It still seems like manipulation could be the cause of it, but it's less likely, though not impossible, that the data was fudged for the purpose of profiting from the betting.

[sfer]

I have a friend at a big national paper and apparently the VNS data was consistent with the blog numbers that were tossed around Slate and other sites.

[Ulysses]

[ QUOTE ]
I have a friend at a big national paper and apparently the VNS data was consistent with the blog numbers that were tossed around Slate and other sites.

[/ QUOTE ]

Yeah, that's what I've now heard from a couple of different sources. So, the question is, was there someone from VNS with a lot of action on tradesports/betfair etc? I don't think this really happened, but we're talking about big big money here.

[Toro]

How mcuh did you make?

[pokerjo22]

My thoughts exactly. The line moved so dramatically over 24 hours across all the sites and on large volumes (Betfair had about $15 million wagered on it yesterday alone). At one point you could get 8-1 against on Bush.