If you’re going to fleece a bookies, it would be wise to ask a friend to place the bet on your behalf, or do it with cash down the local Coral. Craig Williams didn’t. The Gambling Commission is investigating the Prime Minister’s parliamentary private secretary after he placed a bet on the date of the election – three days before his boss called it. Williams’s online bet was flagged as suspicious, which, in his words, has resulted in ‘some routine inquiries’. What’s worse, he only put £100 on at 5/1. It barely seems worth it.
Political betting is not big business. Only £426,000 has been placed on the outcome of the next general election through Betfair Exchange, while around £300 million is put on the Grand National each year. There is a theory that bookmakers offer better odds on politics, giving those in Westminster easy money as a form of soft lobbying. Insiders often bet against their own party or candidate in the hope of hedging the outcome, although one former official tells me it’s considered bad luck. A member of the Remain campaign is rumoured to have put £5,000 on Leave – and irritated colleagues by appearing cheerful as the results came in.
Betting on your job doesn’t always go to plan. ‘Someone on Theresa May’s team put all their savings on a Tory majority in 2017,’ a former member of the campaign tells me. ‘They would have got pretty much the same odds for the largest party, but lost it all.’ The line between insider trading and simply informed betting is difficult to discern. A House of Lords staffer tells me he bet against a candidate in a Tory leadership campaign, knowing that there was a dossier’s worth of gossip about the politician.
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