What was the result of your fact-finding exercise, politicspunter?

Do Betfair's rules explicitly mention that they will settle the market in accordance with the Twelfth Amendment - or don't they?

It's a black and white question, and spoiler: there's a black and white answer.

The only nuisance you are experiencing, politicspunter, is your frustration with your own mental incapacity, because I am actually doing you a favour pointing out something accurate and germane.

You blocked me for the crime of pointing out what Betfair's rules say.

What does "in accordance with" the Twelfth Amendment mean?

That's salient.

Pence, I think, yes, absolutely.

Pelosi, I think overall, yes.

Jmo.

But, short version, right now, as of tonight, in the sense that you mean, for some reasons that are more than simple,

No.

And that's why Betfair, correctly, and in accordance with their rules, have not paid out.

Hahahahahaha, oh dear. On CNN now less.  Pressure's on now boys.

London (CNN Business)The US election still hasn't ended for one person who bet £1 million ($1.3 million) on Joe Biden to be the next president.

The huge wager was placed October 29 on the Betfair Exchange, the world's largest online betting exchange, where gamblers find others to match their wagers. The US presidential election was by far the biggest single event in the platform's history.
Media outlets including CNN have called the race for Biden, but the bettor can't yet collect their £540,000 ($710,000) profit and original stake. A spokesperson for Betfair said Monday that the "market will be settled once the result has been officially confirmed."

Bets would typically be settled following a result declaration from news networks and a concession speech by the losing presidential candidate, the platform said on Friday. But this year is different. President Donald Trump has not yet conceded defeat and he's continuing to push his attorneys to pursue legal challenges that would delay formal certification of the results.
"We will only settle the markets when there is certainty around which candidate has the most projected Electoral College votes," Betfair said in an article posted to its website on Friday evening. "Before settling the markets, we must therefore wait for clarity around ongoing vote counts, recounts and any potential legal challenges to the results."

The bettor who backed Biden with the third biggest wager in Betfair's history wishes to remain anonymous, the spokesperson for Betfair said Monday.
The US presidential election has shattered records for Betfair.
The contest has so far attracted £567 million ($744 million) in bets, making it the largest event of any kind in the platform's 20-year history. The 2016 US election garnered £199 million ($261 million), for comparison, while £51 million ($70 million) was bet on the 2017 fight between Floyd Mayweather Jr. and Conor McGregor.

FXDUX, I completely agree with your comments, although I think this:

"There is no way for Harris to become President unless Biden dies or becomes incapacitated" may not a be as remote a possibility as you think. Trump and Biden are two old codgers under a great deal of stress, and who knows how they will handle the next few weeks of what could prove to be the most intense legal/Constitutional battle in US history.

It's pretty clear. And I'll now, in good faith, explain again exactly why Betfair have not paid out.

Projected majority has more than one meaning.

It could mean Projected majority, in the sense that once the counts are clear, all the media call it, and all the candidates accept it, and there's a concession, and everyone knows for sure what will happen when the electoral college meets in December. They'll elect 270+ in one direction, any faithless electors will be slapped down and struck out if remotely material to the result, and then on 6 January in Congress, when the electoral college votes are OFFICIALLY COUNTED, and OFFICIALLY RECEIVED, and OFFICIALLY CAUSE SOMEONE TO BE CHOSEN PRESIDENT, that very same Projected majority will translate into the expected result.

But what we have at the moment is a situation where the majority that has been projected at the end of the official counts by the networks is not a Projected majority that can be regarded with certainty as an indicator of what will happen when the electoral colleges meet in December.

This distinction between a universally accepted Projected majority and a highly contingent overturnable Projected majority was impliedly utterly clear when reading Betfair's rules in their entirety. While referring to a Projected majority, Betfair also alluded to the possibility of no majority being received through the Electoral College, in the final analysis, and the Twelfth Amendment therefore being called upon as the next method in line for choosing the President. Betfair's rules explicitly state that they will settle the market, if need be, once the electoral college system has failed to produce a result, and after the Twelfth Amendment procedures are activated.

A competent reading of the rules, as soon as you see the reference to the possibility of the Twelfth Amendment settling the market, is that when Betfair used the term Projected Majority, it meant a Projected Majority of a form which meant that using the Twelfth Amendment was precluded, ie a Projected majority that was certain to result in 270 uncontested electors being appointed on 8-14 December.

We do not yet have such a Projected majority.

Last I checked, which was a few hours ago, Trump was about 17k down in Arizona, with 75-80k left to count. He was about 10k down in Georgia. 20k down in Wisconsin, and 45k (might be more now) in Pennsylvania.

There are going to be recounts in at least one or two of these states, and audits. Because of the mail-in votes, there is a total ****how about whether tens or hundreds of thousands of ballots are ineligible and should not have counted. In Pennsylvania, specifically, the Supreme Court Judge Alito specifically ruled that a certain type of ballot was only permitted to be counted if it was segregated from other ballots. They did not do this. They breached a direct Supreme Court order. So, there is a pretty sizeable chance in Pennsylvania that the Supreme Court might rule all ballots in that category ineligible.

The crunch for Trump is this. After the first week of December will come a moment for the electoral results to be "lodged". If they are lodged before the deadline of 8 December - "Safe Harbor" - then they cannot be legally disputed thereafter. But what you need to know is this. The people who put the results together are the state legislatures. The governor's role is merely to certify. In all of these swing stages, the legislatures are top-down Republican. Apart from Wisconsin, I think it was, they all have Republican governors too.

So this is the crunch. Trump has got until the end of the first week of December to flip not those states, but those states' legislatures, ie to convince those Republican legislatures that they should award their electors to him and not Biden. He will do this if he gets Supreme Court decisions which void tens or hundreds of thousands of illegal ballots in Pennsylvania, and if during the recounts and audits he digs up a 20k flip of illegal postal votes in two of Wisconsin, Arizona and Georgia.

It is worth noting that though they have asked for a recount in Wisconsin, they keep not mentioning it as a place they are going to litigate. Apparently, this is because Wisconsin's ballot auditing procedures are unimpeachable. If there are dodgy votes there, in Milwaukee especially, they are expected to locate them.

If Trump convinces them, and the state governor in Wisconsin especially think there's gray in what the Supreme Court said and the numbers now say, then we might have "Duelling Electors"
- not faithless electors - which is when two sets of electors are put forward to Congress.

As of tonight, all of this remains at least "possible". If Duelling Electors are sent to Congress, Congress will debate which to accept, on 6 January. Assuming the Republicans will have control of the Senate, the two Houses are unlikely to come to the necessary agreement on the requisite 270, and that's the point at which the electoral college system would cease to be relevant, and we would move on to the Twelfth Amendment process.

It may be that what Trump is doing peters out; we'll see. But it's worth bearing in mind that just because the MSM is projecting a particular reality does not necessarily represent an accurate analysis of the quality, or otherwise, of the legal issues in play. After all, Wisconsin was supposed to be a 17% win for Biden, not the 0.7% it turned out to be.

Chemosabe, you are a time waster. Blocked.

ahh Mayweather vs MMA - what a brilliant win

and, imo, if you have Biden winning just as a PSA then you should prob green up, as it's best practice anyway

One last,

my current guess.

I started the day probably feeling that it's all a bit unlikely. I'm not swayed by the mainstream media's heat and noise. But current leads are current leads. And it is going to take something substantive for the courts to intervene to allow ballots to be struck out.

I feel a bit differently tonight. I've read a bit more about Alito's Supreme Court order being disregarded in PA. I think that make it quite possible, if not outright likely, that the Supreme Court is going to step in and do something in PA that affects that race dramatically. It's just a personal guess or feeling. I daren't imagine what the reaction in the msm and the Dem populus is going to be if/once they do that. They are unlikely to scrutinize any decision on its merits. They're just going to scream "6-3!"

Trump is going to need two more out of AZ, WI and GA.

In GA and AZ, both Republican top-down from legislature to governorship, at worst the leads are going to be 10k-ish. Trump might even squeak AZ.

Those don't look like unachievable numbers when you look at all the mail-in ballots and all the correct grounds to strike ballots out.

So, as of tonight, I do think this election is up in the air. Not that you'd get any sense of that on the tv news. But then the tv news are the people who brought you WISCONSIN BY SEVENTEEN PERCENT, rather than the 0.7% margin it turned out to be. They are clueless bull**** propagandists, which means that if these issues and numbers do add up into things flipping round, most people are going to be dumbfounded, because they're following a media that is painting a picture rather than reporting events.

If GA and AZ prove flippable, then the most famous man in the world this time next month will be Tom Wolf.

Because if GA and AZ prove flippable in the audit and the struck-out mail-ins, then Trump will have 259 and Biden will have 259, and Pennsylvania (20) will have a Republican General Assembly, a Republican State Senate, and a Democrat Governor in Tom Wolf.

It will be the job of the General Assembly/Senate to choose the electors, and Tom Wolf's job to certify them.

If the Supreme Court of the United States has said that 100,000+ votes in PA are illegal and mustn't be counted, where does that leave Tom Wolf in defying the choice of his Republican legislature and choosing a duplicate set of twenty people for Biden, on the basis of counting those 100,000+ votes?

I don't know.

But I do know that if he can get away with it, he will pick duplicate electors (assuming the red legislature goes with Trump), and then the electoral college system surely WILL fail when it lands in Congress, because the Houses are controlled by different parties, need to agree on the votes, and won't.

Which means ... Twelfth Amendment. And at that point, when people count up how many delegations Biden has, and realise he can't win, he'll go from 1.06 to, who knows, 15 or something.

And I think Nancy Pelosi will do what she has to do, procedurally, to block Trump from being appointed with the 26 delegation majority that he does have. If she can.

All of which means - Mike Pence at 1000-1 is the most ridiculously inappropriate price I have ever seen, or will ever see, on Betfair. And if you want to know why, read Betfair's rules and then read the Amendments to the US Constitution.

Disclaimer: all just guesses. The Supreme Court could rule tomorrow that it wouldn't dream of invalidating a single precious vote in Pennsylvania.

FXDUX,

would you please untangle these contradictory statements:

1) All of which means - Mike Pence at 1000-1 is the most ridiculously inappropriate price I have ever seen, or will ever see, on Betfair

2) all just guesses

politicspunter, I urge you to lay Pence at 1000-1.

You may collect, at the end of the day, on 20 January, but in the interim, when he goes down to 9-1, the colour of your trousers will be a sight to see.

FXDUx....
Your knowledge is pretty enlightening and a bit worrying for my current red on Trump which was initially green before I layed him at 20 !!!

Very informative, though personally I think it is highly unlikely that anything will change.

But thank you for your very detailed and well explained input.
Much appreciated

Yeah, I am not sure why you are getting so much stick.
You only informing people of what may or may not happen

Despite the MSM claiming Trump's "unfounded fraud allegations" & "conspiracy theories" will not affect the outcome, it appears the market is seeing it differently. Buckle up. B/f trading could reach £1Billion before this is over.