Political Betting: Hypocrisy and double standards.

[terminal7]

The FT has published an article on line that clearly shows quite substantial betting on Betfair in the period of 2 days leading up to RS's drenched announcement on 22/5 pm. For instance one bet of £830 at midday 21/5 to deliver £5800 profit. This was followed by a £850 bet at 16.00 to deliver £2562 - clearly the odds had started to tumble. Before 20/5 there had only been 2 bets above £200. The odds continued to tumble am 22/5 in the face of rumours 'in government circles' as Lord Finkelstein reported to Times radio. Remember this is with just one major bookie/exchange. There are some 8 major bookies/exchanges. This could imply quite substantial sums were being placed by those in the know.

Sorry I cannot give a link as behind a firewall.

T7

[Hallucigenia]

(source)

[mike]

The FT has published an article ...

Sorry I cannot give a link as behind a firewall.

T7

Here you are

https://archive.ph/yUDHI

[Nimrod103]

shrtug.

if it was shares whose share price had increased 6 fold in the same time frame based on a govt initiative it would be insider trading, no matter what the amounts.

contrary to Labour’s claims, insider political betting is not a crime
https://order-order.com/2024/06/20/lobb ... hemselves/

Seems like most journalists with close contacts to politicians were also laying bets.

[Hallucigenia]

contrary to Labour’s claims, insider political betting is not a crime
https://order-order.com/2024/06/20/lobb ... hemselves/

Seems like most journalists with close contacts to politicians were also laying bets.

It seems Guido is unaware of section 42 of the Gambling Act 2005 which makes it an offence to cheat at gambling.

And "they were all at it, even journalists" is not a defence.

[Nimrod103]

contrary to Labour’s claims, insider political betting is not a crime
https://order-order.com/2024/06/20/lobb ... hemselves/

Seems like most journalists with close contacts to politicians were also laying bets.

It seems Guido is unaware of section 42 of the Gambling Act 2005 which makes it an offence to cheat at gambling.

And "they were all at it, even journalists" is not a defence.

Guido says you are not right:
Section 42 definition of "Cheating" as per the Gambling Act applies when you nobble a horse, bribe a croupier or mark cards not when you have inside information that your bet is a dead certainty. It requires interference to be a crime.

As reported on his X account. There was no interference here. I'll leave it to the lawyers.

[dionaeamuscipula]

It seems Guido is unaware of section 42 of the Gambling Act 2005 which makes it an offence to cheat at gambling.

And "they were all at it, even journalists" is not a defence.

Guido says you are not right:
Section 42 definition of "Cheating" as per the Gambling Act applies when you nobble a horse, bribe a croupier or mark cards not when you have inside information that your bet is a dead certainty. It requires interference to be a crime.

As reported on his X account. There was no interference here. I'll leave it to the lawyers.

IMO Guido's interpretation of the clause is incorrect. The clause on interference is without prejudice to the more general offence of cheating (IANAL).

DM

[Clitheroekid]

It seems Guido is unaware of section 42 of the Gambling Act 2005 which makes it an offence to cheat at gambling.

And "they were all at it, even journalists" is not a defence.

Guido says you are not right:
Section 42 definition of "Cheating" as per the Gambling Act applies when you nobble a horse, bribe a croupier or mark cards not when you have inside information that your bet is a dead certainty. It requires interference to be a crime.

As reported on his X account. There was no interference here. I'll leave it to the lawyers.

Guido is most definitely wrong. Section 42 does not define the word "cheat". It gives a couple of examples of what might amount to cheating, but that's all they are - examples.

The leading case is an interesting one, which in 2017 went all the way to the Supreme Court, Ivey v Genting Casinos (UK) Ltd (t/a Crockfords) - http://www.bailii.org/uk/cases/UKSC/2017/67.html

Mr Ivey was a professional gambler, and rather successfully used a technique known as edge-sorting to win the not inconsiderable sum of £7.7m whilst playing baccarat at Crockford's.

They didn't initially realise what was going on, but thought it was suspicious, so they hired experts to study the CCTV of the games, and it was then that they discovered how he'd won.They refused to pay out, so he sued them.

The Supreme Court decided that what was required to prove cheating was that the act would be considered dishonest by an ordinary, reasonable person. In particular, they found that Mr Ivey had used deception to win the money, and he was not therefore entitled to keep his winnings. Whether he bet on the outcome of the case is not known!

On the face of it that may seem unfair. After all, card-counting isn't illegal, so why should a very acute observation of tiny differences in the card design be any different? However, on reading the judgment it went much further than that, in that Mr Ivey and his accomplice deliberately got the croupier to rearrange the cards in such a way that the edge-sorting would work.

And on the same basis it's likely that betting on the election date with inside knowledge is cheating because it involves deceiving the bookmaker into thinking that you are an ordinary punter without any specific information.

But it's a grey area, and I would think the chances of a criminal prosecution are extremely small, if only because most jurors are likely to take the view that bookmakers are far bigger crooks than the punters, and that they would therefore probably acquit even if the offence had been technically proved.

[88V8]

And "they were all at it, even journalists" is not a defence.

I wonder whether they have always been at it.
Past govts.
Centuries.
But it's only now visible because of KYC regs.

Sunak must be tearing his hair, one way and another.

V8

[Hallucigenia]

I wonder whether they have always been at it.
Past govts.
Centuries.
But it's only now visible because of KYC regs.

And Gambling Act only dates from 2005, don't know what the legalities were like before that.

[SalvorHardin]

And on the same basis it's likely that betting on the election date with inside knowledge is cheating because it involves deceiving the bookmaker into thinking that you are an ordinary punter without any specific information.

But it's a grey area, and I would think the chances of a criminal prosecution are extremely small, if only because most jurors are likely to take the view that bookmakers are far bigger crooks than the punters, and that they would therefore probably acquit even if the offence had been technically proved.

Bookmakers take advantage of inside information all the time. As do punters. The intent of S42, as shown by the examples, is for blatant cheating such as marking cards, doping horses, players shaving points, bribing referees and using loaded dice.

Most inside information in gambling, such as whether a star player is injured, or how a horse performed in a morning gallop, is in a grey area.

Here's an example which falls foul of S42 but where a prosecution should be laughed out of court.

You are at a horse racing meeting. There is a delay of about 3 seconds between the race and what appears on the big onsite television screen and there is a further 5 seconds delay to the national TV broadcast.

You see that the horse on which you bet has fallen. Your bet was made using a mobile phone app and you use the cash out option to close your bet before the bookies have seen the fall and reacted.

Strictly speaking you gambled using inside information because the market didn't have this information, but you did.

[Urbandreamer]

Most inside information in gambling, such as whether a star player is injured, or how a horse performed in a morning gallop, is in a grey area.

Indeed. However star players do not chose to be injured nor horses. Well I assume not. The date of an election can be chosen. Indeed it was.

Did, for example, Rishi Sunak pay attention to his aids when choosing? Does he pay attention to their research in other matters?
Just a thought.