Rishi Sunak’s gamble was a big one. Five weeks ago, the British prime minister bet on his belief that his Conservative Party had a better chance of staying in power by holding an election in the summer than by waiting until the autumn.
The call for an early general election was Mr Sunak’s final gamble. But just days before he stood forlorn in the pouring rain on May 22 and told the public they would go to the polls, it became clear that many of his colleagues and subordinates had been making a more literal bet.
Looking at data from the week before Sunak’s announcement, bookmakers Stakes surge The amounts bet on election day were small – just a few thousand pounds – but the sudden frenzy was enough to warrant further investigation.
Questions about whether the bets were made by politicians with inside information about Mr Sunak’s intentions and looking to make a quick buck have defined the Conservative government’s final days in power – and outline how some voters perceive the party that has governed Britain for 14 years.
“This case reinforces existing public concerns,” said Luke Trill, executive director of the research group More in Common. “It really gets to the heart of the issue: one rule for them, and one rule for everyone else.”
Craig Williams, one of Mr Sunak’s key parliamentary aides and running for the Conservative Party, was the first to emerge. Under review This comes after the Guardian reported on May 19, three days before the prime minister’s election announcement, that he had bet on July’s election. Mr. Trump, who has now been barred from the campaign, has admitted to making “errors in judgement” but maintains he has not committed any crime.
Several other senior Conservative Party officials have also been named as targets of investigation as the Gambling Commission, the regulatory body that oversees Britain’s diverse gambling industry, expands its investigation.
They include the party’s campaign manager, Tony Lee, and his wife, Laura Sanders, who stood as the Conservative candidate in the next election but has since been suspended by the party.
The Conservative Party’s head of data, Nick Mason, has also been placed on administrative leave after being informed that he was under investigation, and there are rumours that several other Conservative staff may soon be identified in the inquiry.
Meanwhile, one of the officers guarding Mr Sunak has been arrested on suspicion of betting on the timing of the election, with the Metropolitan police saying Confirmed Authorities are also investigating several other law enforcement officers.
The scandal is a further blow to Mr Sunak, who is focused on staving off a potential defeat for his party rather than winning the election due on July 4.
He had already caused a furor by leaving the 80th anniversary of the Normandy landings early to give a television interview – a decision he later apologised for – and was then widely ridiculed for claiming he had a difficult childhood because his parents wouldn’t allow him to watch satellite TV.
The gambling allegations have compounded this damage, strengthening the perception of an out-of-touch party that seems to put itself above ethical concerns, pollsters said.
The most potentially damaging impact, said Michael Gove, one of the Conservative party’s most prominent lawmakers, was “the perception that we are acting outside the rules that we have set for others”. He told the Sunday Times“It was damaging during Partygate,” he said, referring to the scandal over lockdown-breaking parties held in Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s Downing Street residence during the height of the pandemic, “and it’s damaging here too.”
Political gambling is a growing industry — more than $1.5 billion was wagered on the outcome of the 2020 U.S. presidential election, perhaps the largest single gambling event in history — but the market for when the results will be announced is essentially niche, insiders say.
They are essentially run as a novelty, aimed at generating publicity and hopefully attracting new customers, said one longtime political betting expert, who asked not to be named because of the industry’s sensitivity.
According to him, bookmakers are not created to make huge profits. They simply aim to not make a loss, on the assumption that there will be people (not only politicians but also officials from different political parties) who have access to better information than they do. To limit losses, bookmakers limit the amount of money that can be bet on the market.
Bets made in the days leading up to Sunak’s announcement fit that description. Williams, for example, is said to have bet just 100 pounds ($125) and won hundreds of pounds in winnings. “For a senior political figure, it’s not a life-changing amount,” said Joe Twyman, director of polling consultancy Deltapol.
In fact, it may be the market’s small size that alerted authorities to unusual activity in the first place: in markets like horse racing or soccer, the surge would likely go unnoticed.
The UK has a strange relationship with gambling, perhaps best illustrated by its place in the world of sports: in football, as in baseball, for example, players are totally banned from betting on their sport.
Last year, England striker Ivan Toney was given a six-month ban for betting on matches, and Brazil midfielder Lucas Paqueta faces a life ban if found guilty of match betting charges he took part in, charges he strongly denies.
But both Toni and Paqueta play for clubs that were sponsored by gambling companies last season – Brentford and West Ham respectively – and both play in stadiums emblazoned with betting parlour logos – and Brentford’s owner, Matthew Benham, bought the club with money made during his highly successful career as a professional sports bettor.
This cognitive dissonance around gambling is common in Britain, where it is seen as a social stain, a nasty and harmful addiction, taking place in the country’s thousands of high-street betting shops.
If it’s at Royal Ascot and you’re wearing a nice hat, it’s the social event of the season. He described the bet as a “flutter.” — A British expression meaning a small gamble, something that is essentially trivial, harmless and fun.
Experts say the election scandal resonated with voters not because they are opposed to gambling in general, but because of what it implies about the ruling party’s ethics.
“This summarises what everyone was already thinking,” Twyman said. “It reinforces an existing narrative built around the historical issue of Partygate. And it comes with an opportunity cost: people are talking about this, rather than what the Conservative Party wants people to talk about.”
More in Common’s Trill said it’s been surprising how well the campaign has penetrated the public: The gambling scandal, Senator Normandy’s “gaffe” and comments on cable TV have been defining talking points of the campaign, according to the company’s data.
Trill said the allegations didn’t cause a significant change in the polls, but that would be of little help to the Conservatives, because it reflected not how disengaged people are, but that many of their voters have already turned their backs on his party. “A lot of people had already left,” he said.
Indeed, that’s what the bookmakers say: the odds of the Conservatives remaining in power on July 4th are currently 70/1.
