Poll shows what Australians think of US race

News.com.au asked its readers who they think will win the US election as part of an online poll and got more than 160,000 replies.

They were evenly spilt 50/50 between current President Donald Trump and his Democrat challenger Joe Biden.

The results are much closer than the official polls, which suggest Mr Biden will win in a landslide. Even if the polls are as wrong as they were in 2016, Mr Biden is still on track to win, as news.com.au’s Sam Clench explains.

Mr Biden is also the clear favourite to win across the major betting sites.

While his edge is narrowing, many believe betting odds offer a more accurate election prediction than polls, as people have invested their own hard-earned cash in the outcome.

In the final days before the election, Mr Biden’s odds have shortened slightly with Betfair having him at $1.45 to win.

However, it is worth noting that when Mr Trump took on Hillary Clinton in the 2016 election, it wasn’t just the pollsters that got the outcome disastrously wrong – the betting sites also incorrectly predicted a Clinton victory.

In fact, Irish bookmaker Paddy Power failed so spectacularly it ended up with a £4 million ($A7,399,793) bill after prematurely paying out £800,000 $A1,479,958) to those who had backed Hillary Clinton ahead of Donald Trump’s shock win.

According to OddsShark, Mr Trump’s odds to win the 2016 election were close to 5-to-1 on election day eve.