As a new election season gets underway, voters will once again have an opportunity to choose their political leaders. One thing they won’t be able to do—if Washington gets its way—is to bet on election outcomes.
So what, you might ask? Isn’t this all about gambling, and, if so, what public interest is there in allowing people to wager on elections? That certainly seems to be the view of many in Washington, who argue that “allow[ing] legal gambling on elections . . . is a clear threat to our democracy.”
While that may be the assessment of many inside the Beltway, it’s not that of most economists and academics, who argue that trading on anticipated election outcomes promotes the public interest in two important ways.
First, it facilitates the production of information and forecasts that are often more accurate and more reliable than that provided by polling.
