I encountered a question which was stated as:
The reaction of vinyl chloride with hydrogen iodide to give 1-chloro-1-iodoethane is an example of anti-Markovnikov addition. Is this true or false?
The way I could see it, vinyl chloride has a dipole moment as shown below, since chlorine is more electronegative than the carbons in the double bond.
Therefore the carbon on the left would have a greater partial positive charge than the carbon on the right. I therefore concluded that in a Markovnikov addition, the iodine atom would add to the CH2 carbon.
Since the question states that the product is 1-chloro-1-iodoethane, with the iodine atom adding to the CHCl carbon, that would thus be an example of anti-Markovnikov addition, according to the argument above.
I was told, however, that the reaction shown above was indeed Markovnikov addition. How is this so?