Technically, the bet is

> This market will be settled according to the candidate that has the most projected Electoral College votes won at the 2020 presidential election.

So unrelated to the actual certification process.

Projected Electoral College votes could still be based on post-certified results from the states. The projection they're talking about might be the projection of who the electors would vote for (so ignoring faithless electors who could be bribed), rather than the projection of who the electors would be.

The certification process is what gives you the projected electoral college votes. Many states aren’t even done counting the initial vote yet, let alone having recounted or certified so I don’t get how anyone could have a reasonable expectation of getting paid already.

> The certification process is what gives you the projected electoral college votes.

Not the way “projected electoral votes” has ever been used in the past in the context of US Presidential elections, but I will grant that the BetFair bets terms are imprecise enough that they could mean anything.

But what does it mean in practice? Do they say who they consider the authority for the projection? For instance to this day Biden is projected to win Arizona by Fox News and AP but not by other media organizations like CNN.

Seems like an oddly vague phrasing for such bets.

It also fails to define what projection it is based on (so it could be ‘projected by Donald J Trump’ for all that is specified), and further says: “If there is any material change to the established role or any ambiguity as to who occupies the position, then Betfair may determine, using its reasonable discretion, how to settle the market based on all the information available to it at the relevant time. Betfair reserves the right to wait for further official announcements before the market is settled.”

The rules are woefully ambiguous.

True, although I think what they're doing make sense. If they pay out and then Trump's legal challenges succeed, it only gets uglier for them.

Book makers in general are pretty comfortable with low odds risk. It's kind of their business.

In this case I suspect the only reason they haven't settled the market is to avoid causing a scene with people laying bets against Trump, not because they genuinely believe there is any chance of it going the other way.

Traditional bookmakers have already paid out, including Paddypower who are part of the same group "Paddypowerbetfair".