Unusual burst of bets preceded Rishi Sunak’s election announcement

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An unusual burst of bets on a July poll preceded Prime Minister Rishi Sunak’s announcement of the UK general election, according to an analysis of public market data by the Financial Times.

The data from Betfair Exchange adds to concerns about political insiders gambling on the timing of the July 4 poll. It excludes wagers made through other bookmakers.

The bets included several thousand pounds wagered on the day before the May 22 announcement, when the odds implied a less than 25 per cent chance of an election being called for July.

Sunak for months said he expected the election to take place in the second half of 2024, but had not specified a date. Most political observers assumed he would opt to call an election in the autumn.

The betting scandal enveloping Sunak’s struggling campaign intensified on Thursday when the party confirmed Tony Lee, the Conservative director of campaigning, had taken a leave of absence.

The Gambling Commission is investigating Lee over betting on the timing of the election, said a person familiar with the situation. His wife Laura Saunders, the Tory candidate for Bristol North West, is also under investigation by the commission.

Sunak said on a BBC Question Time election programme on Thursday evening that he would “boot” any Conservatives out of the party if they were found to have broken rules by placing bets on the timing of the general election, saying he was “incredibly angry to learn of these allegations”.

Lee did not respond to a request for comment. A solicitor for Saunders said: “Ms Saunders will be co-operating with the Gambling Commission.”

They added that media coverage of the investigation amounted to a “clear infringement of Ms Saunders’ privacy rights” and she was considering legal action.

Labour is seeking to capitalise on the scandal, with Sir Keir Starmer, the party’s leader, calling for Saunders to be suspended as a candidate.

“It’s very telling that Rishi Sunak has not already done that. If it was one of my candidates, they’d be gone and their feet not have touched the floor,” Starmer said on Thursday.

Craig Williams, Sunak’s closest parliamentary aide, has acknowledged placing a £100 bet on the election date three days before it was announced. His bet was made through Ladbrokes.

A police officer assigned to protect the prime minister was arrested on Monday for allegedly making a similar bet.

The UK’s big bookmakers declined to comment on the issue, citing a Gambling Commission probe into potential misconduct.

The commission said it is “investigating the possibility of offences concerning the date of the election”, but declined to give further details.

Using the Betfair Exchange data, the FT found £2,950 had been bet on a July election before May 20, two days before the shock announcement by Sunak.

On May 20 itself, a further £340 was wagered, with £149 coming in one bet, posted in the mid-afternoon at odds that would have netted the unknown punter a £1,392 profit.

On the morning of May 21, Lord Daniel Finkelstein, a Conservative peer, told Times Radio he had picked up “a bit of talk in government circles” that a July election could be on the cards, though he still believed it would happen in the autumn.

A further £2,741 was wagered that day, including some large bets.

At midday, a bet was placed for £415 at odds that should deliver a £2,900 profit. A £425 bet, made at 4pm, should deliver an expected £1,281 profit.

These were the largest bets placed on the market to that point and were twice as large as the next largest. Before May 20, only two bets had come in above £100.

Anyone who had been able to get in ahead of the crowd stood to make handsome profits from less-privileged punters: the odds available on the morning of May 21 implied a one-in-eight chance of a July election.

By the next morning, this had tightened to one in five as rumours started to swirl through Westminster. By midday, the implied chance had soared to 50 per cent and was closing in on 98 per cent by 5pm, when Sunak made his rain-soaked election announcement.

This article has been amended to correct the size of the bets placed on the Betfair Exchange. The first chart has also been similarly corrected.