Donald Trump may have pulled off some kind of coup in securing the Republican nomination for himself, but he may have to execute an even greater magic act in order to capture the presidency. At least that is what some of the analysts are thinking as the polls have not yet closed in the Eastern states. An as we'll see in a moment, the oddsmakers at BetAnySports concur.

Trump may have been able to get by on name recognition and media coverage in his quest for the nomination, but in the general election he has encountered a Hillary Clinton machine that has been well-funded and has most of the support - in some cases very enthusiastic support - from the media, which downplayed many aspects of Hillary's campaign, including, well, her reticence to talk to them, either in a one-on-one setting or in a press conference. And the fact that one of her former colleagues (Donna Brazile) actually helped her cheat for the debates by feeding her the questions ahead of time was seemingly not that big an issue.

On the other side of things, Trump has probably made every rookie mistake in the book, literally from the time he declared his candidacy. And the audio tape that caught him saying very degrading things about women and his approach to them - which this reporter thought would be the absolute end to his campaign - did not in fact do that, indicating a level of resilience that is rarely seen in politicians. Of course, Trump is rare to begin with.

Here are the latest odds as they have been posted at BetAnySports:

Hillary Clinton -750
Donald Trump +525

Clinton caught a huge break on Sunday when it was announced that she was, for all intents and purposes, off the hook for the FBI investigation concerning all of her missing emails, or the private server over which she purportedly communicated during State Department business, although there could still be legal repercussions over the way her Clinton Foundation has done business. She was a weak enough candidate that she was actually beaten by socialist Bernie Sanders in some primaries, and that leads some to believe that perhaps the numbers she supposedly has are a bit inflated, and that the media, in the process of rooting for her victory,.is "selling" her to the voter.

That may or may not be true, but it is conceivable that polling figures may not be capturing the Trump voter in full. In other words, there may be many people he has attracted to the process who are voting for the first time, and therefore aren't going to be interviewed during standard polling procedure. Or, there may be a certain hesitancy on the part of some voters to admit they are for him, because of the characterization of Trump - justified or not - that has him branded a "racist" or "xenophobe."

That is something Trump's supporters in the BetAnySports audience are hoping for; that there is a certain "silent majority" of voters - essentially white and feeling under-represented - who will come out in support of him on this day, which would basically make much of the polling data, and perhaps even strip credibility away from the news outlets that have pushed the narrative that he does not have much of a chance. As it stands, what they are telling us is that Trump has to literally sweep a number of states that would theoretically be up for grabs, including Florida, Ohio and North Carolina, and then bring a state or two that has voted Democratic in recent elections into the fold. This would include Michigan or Pennsylvania. Trump's chance in those states, which have lost a lot of industrial jobs to entities that have taken them out of the U.S., is that maybe he has reached enough potential voters with the message that he will make bringing those jobs back a big priority. But he must pull an "upset" in one of these states, because others like Nevada, which has gradually become more minority-dominated, are likely to slip from him. Can he "Steal" one of these key states from Hillary? And on top of that, win all the states where the race is supposedly close? If you believe the pundits, this is exactly what he has to do, although there may indeed be one more big surprise for everybody.

Remember that you can bet the election at BetAnySports, and then, of course, you can feast on football and basketball with reduced juice, generous payouts on exotics and Live Betting Extra. You can also open up your account using Bitcoin, although we're not sure either of the major candidates would approve!