What happened?

The Action Network reports:

FanDuel had its U.S. Presidential Election odds up in West Virginia for approximately 15 minutes on Tuesday night before pulling them down entirely and removing the Politics tab from its site and app.

FanDuel said the following in a statement to The Action Network: “While the markets were approved, the West Virginia Lottery has asked FanDuel to refrain from offering the markets until they have time to fully work through the implications of this new market offering.”

A West Virginia Lottery spokesperson told Legal Sports Report, “It is my understanding that we were asked by the sportsbooks to allow betting on the presidential election and it is being reviewed. I think possibly someone jumped before being given an approval.”

Note -- In checking various news sites, I found differing accounts of exactly why the election bet was removed.

Why now?

Bookies.com suggested the obvious reason:

The premature unveiling suggests this was a reactionary move from FanDuel with the NBA, NHL, MLB and pretty much every sport other than table tennis and horse racing off the board.
Sportsbooks have been hurting for options amid the coronavirus shutdown. FanDuel is even hosting free daily fantasy sports contests on video game simulations of NFL games.

Why West Virginia?

My hunch is that FanDuel was willing to test the waters in a state that handles pocket change compared to the big denominations found in New Jersey and Nevada. Additionally, the state’s betting law might be seen as encouraging such bets. Local delegate Shawn Fluharty, who deserves much of the credit for sports betting in West Virginia, tweeted this before the bet was shut down:

We specifically discussed this bet in the committee process and made sure our language would allow for it, among others. Glad to see we're the first state to offer it up! Now about iGaming... https://t.co/BwrCyWNd7U

— Shawn Fluharty (@WVUFLU) April 7, 2020

What were the odds?

According to the Action Network, here were the odds at 7 PM last night:

• Donald Trump: bet $11 to win $10
• Joe Biden: bet $10 to win $12.50
• Andrew Cuomo: bet $10 to win $220
• Bernie Sanders: bet $10 to win $350
• Mike Pence: bet $10 to win $350
• Hillary Clinton: bet $10 to win $500
• Nikki Haley: bet $10 to win $500
• Michele Obama: bet $10 to win $1000

If my understanding of betting markets is correct, Fan Duel thought that somewhere around half of the money bet in West Virginia would have been on Donald Trump.