The raucous, passionate and unpredictable 2016 US presidential election is on track to notch another distinction: the most wagered-upon political event ever.
With many opinion polls showing a tight race just one day before Tuesday's election, record numbers of gamblers are pouring millions into online platforms from Ireland to Iowa in the hope of capturing a financial windfall from a victory by Democrat Hillary Clinton or Republican Donald Trump.
UK-based internet betting exchange Betfair said its Next President market was set to become the most traded it had ever seen and expected to surpass even Brexit, the UK referendum to leave the European Union.
By Sunday, roughly $US130 million ($A169 million) had been traded on who will become the next US president, compared with $US159 million on Brexit, Betfair spokeswoman Naomi Totten said. The amount bet so far on the 2016 contest dwarfs the roughly $US50 million laid on the 2012 race.
"We think it is because (of) how raw the Brexit (vote) is in people's minds - they're not convinced yet that it's a done deal," Totten said.
Most polls leading into Britain's June 23 referendum predicted Britons would choose to remain in the EU. Instead, they voted to leave by a 52 per cent to 48 per cent margin.
Betfair's Next President market was by far the largest of more than 70 markets on the site related to the US election.
On Ireland's Paddy Power, which merged with Betfair earlier this year, the US presidential election "is definitely on course to be the biggest political event," said spokesman Feilim Mac An Iomaire. The site has had about $US4.38 million bet on the race so far.
Ladbrokes, a UK-based gambling company, said a little over $US6 million ($A7.8 million), had been bet on the 2016 presidential election since its markets on the race opened four years ago. A Ladbrokes spokesman said that amount was "at least double" the amount wagered on the 2012 election.
The three sites all reported an 83 per cent probability of a Clinton victory on Tuesday. Her probability shot up a few percentage points on Sunday after the FBI stood by its earlier recommendation that no criminal charges were warranted against Clinton in her use of a private email server.
The vast majority of big-dollar political betting occurs outside America. Wagering on elections in the US is limited by law to relatively small trading platforms connected to universities, which use data from the markets for academic research.
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