If Rishi Sunak’s aide Craig Williams did in fact “put a flutter” on a July election with the benefit of inside knowledge of when this year’s vote would be called, then it would have been an “incredibly stupid thing to do for the sake of £500”.
That’s according to one industry insider who spoke to The Telegraph following the news that Williams – who is also standing to be re-elected as MP for Montgomeryshire and Glyndwr – is under investigation by the Gambling Commission for a £100 bet he put on the election date, at reported odds of 5/1.
Williams’s bet was placed on May 19, and the election was called just three days later on May 22, leading to “routine inquiries” with which the Prime Minister’s former parliamentary private secretaryhas said he “will fully cooperate”.
As the bet is believed to have been made online, Williams, 39, would have had to sign up for an account using his real name, which would then have been subject to automatic verification checks, according to the standard industry approach.
Williams is believed to have been categorised by Ladbrokes, the firm with which he placed the bet, as a “politically exposed person”, meaning that “there would have been extra monitoring placed on his betting activity in politics markets,” says the insider, who works for a different company.
“When the bet was placed it was very likely flagged immediately given that monitoring, and then someone would have manually reviewed it, found out who Williams was and what the bet was on, and then referred it to the Gambling Commission.”
When approached by The Telegraph, the Commission said it “does not typically confirm or deny whether any investigations are under way unless or until they are concluded, or if arrests are made or charges are brought during a criminal investigation”.
A spokesman added: “If someone uses confidential information in order to gain an unfair advantage when betting, this may constitute an offence of cheating under Section 42 of the Gambling Act, which is a criminal offence.”
The insider says the Commission is likely to focus on whether there was a “smoking gun” – such as a text message in which Williams was informed in advance of the election date.
Reports released shortly after the election was called suggested that the Cabinet was informed Parliament would be dissolved only a few hours before the general public, and that just a handful of the Prime Minister’s allies were told about the decision in advance.
It is unclear whether Williams was among the initial group taken into Sunak’s confidence. Lord Cameron, the Foreign Secretary, described the bet as a “clearly very foolish decision”.
“There was plenty of speculation in the days before and because of how obvious this would have been to Ladbrokes, I don’t believe that Williams had really been told directly when the election was going to be,” says the anonymous bookmaker.
Thanks to the stringent checks in place, insider bets by politicians are rare, “though more than a few like to bet on things like leadership races or how many seats their own party might lose, which is completely legal,” they add.
More typical are insider bets by sportsmen. Last month, West Ham’s Lucas Paquetá was charged by the Football Association with spot-fixing. The midfielder is accused of deliberately earning yellow cards in four Premier League games over the past two seasons to benefit associates in Brazil. The move came after a large number of suspicious bets were identified from Paquetá’s hometown in Brazil. He denies the charges “in their entirety”.
According to the bookmaker, it is necessary, on rare occasions, to “remove access to politics betting from a politician, or sports betting from a sportsman”. But anyone with certain insider knowledge who wanted to place a bet without being caught would simply do so at a betting shop, paying with cash, the insider says.
“That’s why I’m fairly sure nothing illegal happened here, unless he just couldn’t be bothered to walk to a local bookmakers and put a bet on in cash. Though I suppose Williams wouldn’t be the first politician to do something as silly as this,” they add.
A £100 bet in cash would usually not raise eyebrows at a high-street betting shop, and it would have been possible for Williams to place the money under a fake name, so long as he wasn’t recognised.
“For someone wanting to put £1,000 or £5,000 on something then the bookie might ask for ID or proof of their address, as it looks suspicious, but at £100 people are mostly left to their own devices.”
In theory, then, any politician with knowledge of the election date “could have walked into 20 different bookmakers on high streets across the country, put £100 down in cash when the odds were still five to one, and made a fortune,” says the insider.
But as Williams himself said on Wednesday, any senior parliamentarian with a mind to do so might at least “have thought through how it looks”.
