In 1997 the press tracked down the Durham taxi driver who had, in 1983, placed a £10 bet on one of his passengers, a young Tony Blair one day becoming prime minister. Again, in 2010, William Hill reported that it stood to lose £1 million after it emerged they had laid bets to two students in 1996 — Justin Tomlinson and Chris Kelly — that one day they would become prime minister. Both became Conservative MPs, but only Tomlinson remains in with a shout of netting a £500,000 windfall.
In recent years though, political betting has become a serious business as the stakes have grown far higher. The emergence of more firms and markets, combined with the boom in online gambling, has created an increased interest.
During the Scottish Independence referendum, one punter staked £1 million on the outcome — winning £193,000 over the course of a few hours on election night. Then, in 2016, over £120 million was wagered on the Brexit referendum, while the dramatic Trump/Clinton US contest a few months later was adjudged to have been the biggest single betting event — barring the grand national — the UK has ever seen.
As of 2023, the industry is estimated to be worth over £14.3 billion and the big winners, beyond the bookmakers, are the Treasury who rake in huge tax revenues (how much). Denise, John and Peter Coates, the owners of bet365, were the third-highest taxpayers in the UK last year, according to the latest edition of the Sunday Times rich list.
With the 2024 election in full swing, the bookmakers are now readying themselves for what could be the biggest British election ever for punters. William Kedjanyi is the “man with a whiteboard” and Star Sports dedicated full-time politics guru who will be gunning across the country this month. “Political betting has now entered the mainstream,” Kedjanyi says. “Twenty years ago, it used to be just for political anoraks, but as there is more data and more polling companies, the public demand for a bet is increasing.”
Whereas the average sports punter doesn’t use data models to predict the outcome of an event, the political punters are more switched on to trends that are happening. These are, Kedjanyi says “stats people or political scientists with their own models.” All of which means that the bookmakers need to be attuned to what is happening on the ground.
So far in this campaign, the big question that dominates the betting world is the same one that dominates the rest of the election; just how much can the Conservative vote collapse?
Paul Krishnamurty is a freelance journalist and professional gambler who writes the Betfair politics blog each week. He has already advised his followers to back Labour and back them to win big. “If you look at recent wins in the mayoral elections in York/North Yorkshire and East Midlands, Labour are winning in places, easily, where they started miles behind. It all suggests these MRP projections and betting signals are accurate”.
“The only glimmer of hope for Sunak is that the bookmakers, like the pollsters, have got it wrong before.”
Since the campaign began, the bookmakers have seen money flooding towards Labour and the Lib Dem in their marginal seats. Krishnamurty argues that “tactical voting to help the Lib Dems is underestimated, especially in rural areas”. The flow of money so far suggests that the public have looked at Sunak’s campaign and decided that he is about to take them to their worst defeat in history. The odds of a Tory collapse are shortening by the day — and they are now favoured in some places to win between 50-99 seats.
The only glimmer of hope for Sunak is that the bookmakers, like the pollsters, have got it wrong before. History suggests that it can happen. Not only did they miss the Brexit vote and Trump’s 2016 victory, but they also laid 200/1 odds on Jeremy Corbyn to become Labour leader.
During an election campaign, events can change voters’ attitudes before the bookmakers have caught on. Take 2017 as a case study. The Tories were initially priced to be on course for a handsome 86-seat majority. But as the election unravelled for Theresa May, the chance of a hung parliament was still seen as a huge outside bet — priced at 7/1 with a week to go. On election night — the markets failed to react to the exit poll — and then overreacted by making Jeremy Corbyn the favourite to become the next prime minister.
The problem for Sunak is events — symbolised in his decision to skip the D-Day commemoration — are now running against him. With each day that passes, the media and the public are searching for the next gaffe to undermine his campaign.
History also suggests that bookmakers have missed the size of a party’s collapse on the assumption that there is a floor to their support. In 1983 they were slow to respond to Labour’s collapse by offering punters 28/1 on a Conservative victory by 97 seats or more (Thatcher won by 144). In 1997 the bookmakers also sensed that the Conservative vote would hold up with the seat line priced at 367 for Labour to the Tories 242. Sellers of Tory seats had a great night when the party chalked up just 165 MPs as minister after minister was humbled.
As we approach the July poll, history suggests that the bookmakers could have overstated the Labour lead or actually underestimated a Conservative collapse. And just as the politicians are constantly calculating what risks to take and what they can do to turn things around, the punters watch every move in a campaign to see whether they can gain a new edge or spot the next trend before anybody else. In a world in which Westminster politics is increasingly unpredictable and voters are more volatile than ever before, the iron laws which once ruled politics no longer exist. And the more unpredictable it is, the more interesting it is for punters — just as Ron Pollard had suspected way back in 1963.