News
America’s Retro Pastime: Election Betting
The article recounts how U.S. election nights in the late 19th and early 20th centuries turned into public spectacles with crowds gathering at newspaper offices, streets, and Madison Square to watch telegraph updates projected onto walls. Betting on election outcomes was widespread, from Wall Street bookmakers to informal “freak bets” like rolling peanuts or eating crow. Historians estimate half of the nation’s election betting occurred in New York City, with up to 500,000 bets placed on the 1900 election. Candidates sometimes visited bookmakers to signal confidence, and campaigns used fictitious bets to inflate perceived support.