Confessions of a political gambler

What could be more exquisite than the life of the professional gambler? I began my career in 2016 with a modest punt of £1,000 on the London mayoral election. Bingo. Sadiq Khan won and I banked a profit of £100. Then Brexit. My guess was that the pollsters had overestimated support for Remain and that the country was keen to evict the conjoined twerps, David Cameron and George Osborne, from Downing Street. The referendum was our chance to vaporise both their careers simultaneously. One cross, two graves. That’s what happened. And I cleared another tidy sum.

I cursed the day that I’d ever started gambling. I was a fool. A dunce. A clueless moron

But I was haunted by a wager I’d laid in the winter of the same year while watching Fox News over a relaxing pint of Tesco claret. I bet £800 on a Donald Trump victory. Over the ensuing months I watched in disbelief as the candidate set about destroying his reputation with improvised asides and unforced blunders, including a claim that he could ‘shoot somebody’ on Fifth Avenue without harming his popularity. Trump was a lost cause. So was my money. Hillary Clinton confirmed the news in her pre–victory statement on 26 October. She tweeted a picture of herself as a schoolgirl alongside the caption: ‘Happy birthday to this future president.’ She’d already won. It was over. I cursed the day that I’d ever started gambling. I was a fool. A dunce. A clueless moron.

And then the results came in and everything changed. Hillary was out. Trump was president. And I was a genius. A maestro. A visionary. I could gaze into the future and anticipate events before they happened. And there was money to be made as well.