For more than a year now, a handful of sportsbooks and betting exchanges have been offering odds on when the next UK General Election would be held.
It’s a strange market to bet on, given that the decision on the date that voters will head to the ballots is decided by the prime minister and their closest confidants in politics.
Perhaps we shouldn’t be surprised then that a close parliamentary aide to Rishi Sunak finds themselves in hot water. Craig Williams placed a £100 wager on the next election being held in July – three days before the PM revealed publicly that the vote would indeed take place that very same month.
Insider Trading
The latest polls suggest that Sunak and his Conservative Party are going to take a bit of a kicking at the ballot, with Nigel Farage and the Reform Party likely to capture a portion of the right-wing vote.
And the PM’s limited time left at 10 Downing Street has been made all the more difficult due to the actions of Williams, who as an aide should behave in impeccable fashion.
However, Williams has been a naughty boy – by betting on an outcome he already knew of, he would be guilty of a form of ‘insider trading’. Any information ‘known by an individual as a result of their role in connection with an event and which is not in the public domain,’ is said to be privileged, and so wagering using such knowledge could be construed as a criminal offence under Section 42 of the Gambling Act.
The UK Gambling Commission has launched a full enquiry into Williams’ conduct, with a range of possible sanctions including fines and even a prison sentence of up to two years – although, in this case, the relatively small amount wagered is likely to be punished at the milder end of the spectrum.
But matters could take a turn for the worse. Williams faces the wrath of voters when the ballots open in his Montgomeryshire constituency on July 4 – the scandal hardly helping his perception in the eyes of voters just weeks shy of the election.
According to Sky News, Williams placed the bet at a Ladbrokes shop in his home constituency – at the time of striking his wager, a July General Election was priced at 5/1.
He has since admitted as much in a post on X, in which he revealed he ‘put a flutter’ on the General Election, and had since been contacted by the Gambling Commission. Williams promised to ‘fully co-operate’ with any subsequent investigation. “I should have thought through how it [the bet] looks,” he confessed.
Statement: pic.twitter.com/Z8uMpPlnLJ
— Craig Williams (@craig4monty) June 12, 2024
New Labour, Different Gambling Laws?
Labour are, at the time of writing, a staggering 1/40 to win the most seats at the election.
It’s an implied probability of 97.6%, which as betting goes is pretty much as unanimous as it gets.
So Keir Starmer and co will likely be sworn into 10 Downing Street in July, where they’ll face all manner of challenges in their first year in office.
Gambling Reforms on the Agenda
Slightly further down the pecking order, but of no less importance, will be sorting out the gambling sector and its legislation, which the Conservatives were in the midst of overhauling prior to the election being called.
Some of the recommendations of the White Paper are being pushed through anyway, irrespective of the change of government, with the affordability check trial scheduled to get underway in August.
But there are other elements of the White Paper that would require laws to be changed in order for them to be enacted – affording Labour the chance to amend the recommendations, or discard them altogether, as they see fit.
Starmer revealed his party’s official manifesto earlier last week, in which he confirms that Labour will kick on with reforms to the gambling sector.
The dossier reveals that Labour will ‘strengthen protections’, with an ambition to reduce gambling-related harm at the forefront of any changes that are forthcoming.
Stephanie Peacock has been Labour’s shadow secretary for sport, and will presumably be handed the main job should her party win the July election. She has previously spoken of her support for horse racing – ‘the future of racing must be protected for generations to come’ – while referencing the role that the betting industry plays in part-financing the sport.
And there could be good news for punters who are morally opposed to the nature of affordability checks – Peacock is quoted as saying that it’s ‘….important for racing that the government and the Gambling Commission work with the industry to ensure that financial risk checks are truly frictionless, targeted and accurate.’