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The bets are on ahead of tonight’s vice presidential debate, with bookies rounding up the odds on who will win the showdown: Democrat Tim Walz or Republican JD Vance?
Though the main bet is centered around who will be crowned winner or loser, there are dozens of fringe bets including whether the phrasees “weird” and “Tampon Tim” will be mentioned, how many false claims will be flagged, and whether Vance will sport a blue suit.
The two VP candidates will take the debate stage tonight at 9pm ET (October 1) on CBS News, for the only Walz-Vance matchup of the election.
Online betting companies have Minnesota Governor Walz well ahead as the favorite to win tonight’s debate against Ohio’s Senator Vance, .
Walz is forecast to be the debate winner on multiple betting platforms, with his odds at -300 via BetOnline and Vance at +200.
(Note: bets with a “+” mean that the odds are against this outcome, while a “-” means that the odds favor this outcome._
According to gambling odds aggregator website OddsChecker, 60 percent of bets so far have been placed for Walz, and 40 percent for Vance.
Meanwhile online prediction platform Polymarket shows that gamblers believe Walz has a 76 percent chance of winning.
Since the overall debate winner could be subjective, the bets are decided based on who wins in a CBS-affiliated poll.
Exclusive polling for The Independent shows that three in four people are planning to watch tonight’s debate; and most people believe that the VP pick has a significant impact to the overall election.
Among the many more obscure bets available on BetOnline for the debate, some stand out more than others.
There are high odds that Walz will say the word “cats” (-400), an animal that has become a major talking point this election, whether that be for Vance’s attack on “childless cat ladies”, or Trump’s debunked claims that Haitian immigrants are eating pet cats in Ohio.
Meanwhile, Republicans have tried to popularize the nickname “Tampon Tim” to refer to Walz, after he signed a state law promising free menstrual care for schoolchildren.
BetOnline is now offering a bet on whether Vance will say “tampon” during the debate – but the odds are currently low.
On one Reddit thread, gamblers are debating whether to take the plunge. Apparently, betting on someone saying the phrase “Tampon Tim” is too risky — but the word “tampon” itself is still fair game, depending on the odds.
In terms of favorability ahead of the debate, Walz continues to be the only candidate with an average positive rating, while Vance has been pitted as being more unpopular than Sarah Palin.
Walz has an average +3.7 favorability score, according to aggregated polls from FiveThirtyEight, with 36.5 percent of people having an unfavorable opinion of him and 40.1 percent having a favorable opinion.
By comparison, Vance has had an overall negative favorability score ever since he entered the race, which has only grown more unfavorable.
He is at an overall -11 unfavorable score, with 45.7 percent of people having an unfavorable opinion of him compared to 34.7 percent favorable.
For context, the presidential candidates both have similar favorability ratings to their VPs.
Donald Trump has a negative -9.6 favorability score, while Harris is scraping a +1.1 positive score; though she has been in the red until very recently.
