After the change in US gambling rules, election bets are betting millions on the duel between Harris and Trump

Millions of dollars have been poured into bets on who will win the US election after a last-minute court ruling opened up betting on the vote, raising the stakes in a too-close race that has already angered voters.

Contracts for a Harris win traded between 48 percent and 50 percent in favor of the Democrat on Friday at Interactive Brokers, a firm that benefited from a legal opening created earlier this month in the country’s long-running regulatory battle over election markets.

With just a month until the Nov. 5 vote, markets opened after a Washington court ruled that Kalshi, a startup that has been trying for years to introduce political betting in the United States, used betting as a legal remedy for regulators against the bets company could continue.

Within days, more than $6.3 million was put at stake on the Harris-Trump duel alone, with users also betting on control of the House and Senate.

It’s the latest twist in a years-long saga between the Commodity Futures Trading Commission and firms seeking to offer election betting – a legal practice in a number of other countries and one in which some Americans participate in oversight by outside regulators through offshore markets.

More than $1.7 billion has been invested in the Harris-Trump duel at one of those offshore sites, Polymarket, where Trump held a 54-45 lead over Harris as of Friday evening.