Chris Christie’s surprise endorsement of Donald Trump on Friday immediately set tongues wagging about what’s in it for him. After all, Trump has previously said of Christie that “there could certainly be a place for him” as his running mate.
Betting markets seem to think that there’s something to this idea. At Ladbrokes, the only major bookmaker betting on the No. 2 slot, Christie’s odds of being the Republican nominee for vice president were 8/1 before a few bets alerted them to the endorsement. The British oddsmaker immediately slashed the odds to 5/1, then 4/1 and after a flurry of more bets, have further cut Christie’s odds to 5/2. (If you find British odds a mystery, note that this translates to a 2-in-7, or 29 percent chance.)
That said, in lightly traded markets like this, the bookmaker builds in a large profit margin, which exaggerates these probabilities. As such, it’s probably better to say that Christie’s chances are around 10 to 15 percent.
Of course, these odds factor in the chances of Trump becoming the Republican nominee, but Christie’s endorsement also led bettors revise their views about that. Trump’s odds of winning the Republican nomination rose to 73 percent in the hours after Christie’s endorsement, from 70 percent just prior to that, according to David Rothschild, a keen analyst of prediction markets. It’s a useful bump after a difficult Republican debate, and Rothschild noted that this 3-point rise “is about half the value he lost last night.” (Full disclosure: I was also Rothschild’s doctoral adviser.)
Christie is now the market favorite to be the Republican running mate. John Kasich, Marco Rubio and Nikki Haley are the other most-likely picks. Matthew Shaddick, head of political odds at Ladbrokes, also noted that he’s “been seeing a bit for money for Huckabee,” whose odds have moved to 10/1 from 33/1. The next most likely contenders are Sarah Palin and Carly Fiorina.
Shaddick noted in an email that “back in 2008 when Palin was McCain’s pick, she’d been second or third favorite with us for several weeks beforehand.” When John McCain announced his pick, it came as a surprise to many political commentators, but Shaddick wrote that “if they’d simply looked at the odds, it would have come as no real surprise.”
As for Christie’s chances, Shaddick admitted that the odds “are probably too short, but I find that people can overreact to this sort of news.”
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