German election betting
Given the excellent engagement Cloudbet saw with people wanting to bet on politics in the US presidential election, our focus has now turned to the German federal election, to once again test the thesis that the betting market may in fact prove to be a better indicator of the results then the polls.
“Betting markets can offer unique insights into how segments of the voting public perceive the election,” a Cloudbet election expert said. “We will continue to monitor movements as the debates and campaigns continue.”
What's more, Cloudbet is the only major crypto operator offering German election markets.
Betting odds on the German federal election swung firmly towards Olaf Scholz and his SPD party after polls indicated that he won the first televised debate of the campaign.
After the first debate, markets gave Scholz a 56% probability of becoming the country’s next chancellor, up from 36% on August 23 - taking the lead from main rival Armin Laschet, whose likelihood of becoming chancellor slumped to 44% from 63%. At this point, there is even a chance that the CDU goes with another candidate as Laschet struggles to rally the support of the party faithful, let alone attract any new voters.
Sunday’s debate was largely uncontroversial, with views on climate change proving to be one point of difference between the three chancellor candidates. Some 36% of viewers picked Scholz, according to a Forsa poll for broadcasters RTL/ntv. The Greens’ Annalena Baerbock placed second with 30%, while Laschet was last with 25%.
Cloudbet's German election page
Current market odds are hosted on an enriched event page that charts real-time price movements and will live-stream future debates for players to seize betting opportunities as odds shift.
The page includes a number of live visualisations of the current probability of an outcome as suggested by the current odds in that market.
For example, the chart below tracks the changes in the probability in the "Party of Next chancellor" market - which, at the time of this snapshot, was being led by the SPD at around 65% - ahead by some distance of the CDU/CSU at around 30% - a reversal of fortune from August 26-27.

Cloudbet Opinion
The page also contains "Cloudbet Opinion", a visual representation of which party bettors are favouring with their wagers, and a useful alternative voting indicator to opinion polls.
Looking at the snapshot below, the top pie chart represents the same as the line graph above - the current market odds for each party.
The second pie chart shows the current Cloudbet Opinion - which represents the parties that Cloudbet players have placed bets on. However, it is important to stress that this represents only the number of bets placed so far on each party and does not reflect the size of those bets or the total amount of action Cloudbet has seen on any given party. In that sense, it's much like the actual voting process.

Fully localised site in German
In June, Cloudbet launched a fully localised site in German, on which German-speaking customers can find the election page in their native tongue should they prefer.
Players at Cloudbet, regardless of their language of choice, can bet with 12 cryptocurrencies including BTC, ETH, BCH, USDT, Dash, LTC, LINK and DOGE.
Following the huge uptake seen in Cloudbet's US election betting coverage last year - which extended to media coverage too - and in a constant bid to deliver to our users what they want, Cloudbet proudly extends its election coverage to include German federal election odds.