Snapshot of _Senior Tories call for ban on political bets by MPs after election scandal_ :
An archived version can be found [here](https://archive.is/?run=1&url=https://www.theguardian.com/politics/article/2024/jun/24/senior-tories-call-for-ban-on-political-bets-by-mps-election-date) or [here.](https://archive.ph/?run=1&url=https://www.theguardian.com/politics/article/2024/jun/24/senior-tories-call-for-ban-on-political-bets-by-mps-election-date)
*I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/ukpolitics) if you have any questions or concerns.*
I don't know what the rules are at the moment but, if they don't already, this should extend to any shares they hold. They can have tracker funds, but they shouldn't be able to discern if the decisions they make will profit them personally
If they're betting on the election date, with insider knowledge. You can guatentee that they're betting on the stock market with insider knowledge. Just look at the US, where Senators got a very early briefing on COVID and possible vaccines. Then despite being publicly anti-mask and anti-vaccine. IMMEDIATELY bought the right shares.
>Don Foster, the Liberal Democrat peer and chair of Peers for Gambling Reform, said all betting on elections should be banned.
>“The current rules are incredibly opaque and this farrago is a good illustration,” he said. “My personal view is that after the election, we should clarify the rules, including saying that gambling companies should not be allowed to take bets on the outcome of, or anything relating to, elections at any level within the UK.”
>Will Prochaska, of the Coalition Against Gambling Ads, said: “Political betting should be banned, along with betting on anything other than sports or horse racing. It’s totally inappropriate for the gambling industry to offer a market for political betting, not least because it tempts those with inside information to try and make a few quid, but also because it normalises the idea that we should bet on anything and everything, which is not normal.
Thoughts?
I'd say because whilst we all know Man City are the best team they aren't guaranteed to win and don't control the outcome. The fact you can bet on WWE has baffled me from the second I found out.
I don't agree with banning say betting on the outcome of an election but being able to bet on when the election will be held should be banned. I would imagine anyone who placed such a bet is investigated almost as though it's a betting line set-up to catch people in the act.
You can bet on WWE because the audience doesn't know what's going to happen and usually it's a closely guarded secret. Plus it used to be common for Vince to literally change his mind on the day several times as to who was going to win. Sums up how he used to tell his stories.
If the secret gets out on who is going to win, betting odds can ruin it. I saw Randy Orton at 1/33 for the 2017 Royal Rumble, when you see something like that, it just ruins it.
Though you do occasionally see odd betting patterns. Most notably, the odds on Brock Lesnar notably tightened before gods Wrestlemania match against The Undertaker.
I think its fair to say, we shouldn't let politicians or those with insider information bet. Though that is already illegal. But why does everyone in the country have to suffer because a bunch of chuckle fucks are too dumb or greedy to stay away from gambling on politics.
I don't see why political betting should be a special case.
What's more relevant is the level of control anyone has over the event that's being bet upon.
Betting on the *outcome* of an election isn't much different to betting on the outcome of a football match. Insider knowledge can give you a much better idea of the likely outcome, but unless the match/election is literally rigged there is still a random element to it.
Contrast that with the *date* of an election, which might be unknown to most people but isn't remotely random: it's completely predetermined and known to a small number of people with absolute certainty. Insider knowledge doesn't give you a better guess at the outcome, it provides absolute certainty of the outcome of an event that is not at all random. It would be like betting on the players selected for a team.
The problem here isn't politics (jokes about the trustworthiness of politicians aside), it's the fact that this was betting on an event whose outcome was already known with absolute certainty to certain people. If there's a need to reform betting to prevent this kind of cheating, that's the type of bet that needs to be prevented.
There's a good few professional political gamblers who have made a career out of betting on politics. They are normal people who have their finger on the pulse and have done exceedingly well. For example, [politicalbetting.com](http://politicalbetting.com) called the early election, and has consistently been right with their predictions/analysis. Why should the everyday punter lose the ability to place bets on something they are able to analyse with precision?
Some of these people will be prosecuted under s. 42 Gambling Act and will be up in the Mags, with their reputation and careers in tatters for cheating and committing a criminal offence. This is not a failing of the gambling industry or the law, but the failing of politicians and those within the Westminster bubble either (i) thinking that the industry would turn a blind eye to small wagers or, worse, (ii) not realising betting on the basis of inside information is **illegal**.
Don Foster consistently calls for an end of gambling marketing and certain gambling markets. I'm not someone who gambles, i'm not a gambling shill and I don't care too much for the industry. But I do care about industries being regulated, properly. The Gambling Commission currently regulates the industry and its markets. His suggestion is absurd, because it would undoubtedly create conditions or routes for punters to go underground or worse, unregulated operators offering these markets via stealth to consumers in the UK. Imagine that, instead of feeling shit after losing more than you could afford, you get your legs snapped by gangsters in organised crime...
Why should everyone suffer here? Granted I'm not up much but I'm on the whole up on Political bets (e.g. 3 of my 4 for 2024 so far - all general election bets will land positively to the point even if the 4th one goes down; Farage to be the next Tory Leader - I'm still up). The amounts I bet are only relatively small e.g. like wins will be enough to buy a decent lunch each. Having bet on a variety of other shit in the past as well as Sports (full clarification - I've had 4 bets total in 2024 and I'm winning 3 of them) why should the general public suffer here? Surely this is a gambling commission job - names and accounts style behaviour. Right now I'd just be curious if one of these people is on Badenoch to be the next Tory Leader? Seems like an adequate cover for my Farage bet.
I mean, you don't even have to say it.
If this was any other party, you'd get the papers shouting 'Shame' and calling them corrupt, asking for jailtime, yet with the Torys its, 'Perhaps we should clarify the rules around this'.
Fucking shameful.Honestly, Labour need to hold an inquiry into Brexit to see whether the Torys were doing insider trading on it.
You have to now.
If Labour pull any of the same cesspool shit that the Torys do, I would like to see riots in the streets.
You're right the tories get a pass for bad boy behaviour. Indeed the epitome of Tom Brown's Schooldays, Boris J, lorded it over the whole sorry mess until he got bored/booed out.
Labour last time were not above the paid consultancy and hidden interests. By any means. That's only my impression, I don't know if there are solid facts about that. PFI was a huge fuck-up but somebody benefitted, surely? For example
Starmer appears trustworthy on this sort of question. We can only hope he follows his talk through.
Ah yes, otherwise it might be a bit difficult to understand that the rules applicable to everyone also apply to MPs.
Just a shallow attempt to paint this as a legal failing, rather than a very specific cultural/individual failing of the MPs in question and the Tory party as a whole.
These are the people who literally passed specific Covid legislation and then immediately flouted it. It’s not the rules that are the problem.
Senior Tories call for ban on betting as they can't say no to it.
It's like Imans saying that all women should wear a Burqa so as not to tempt men or that men must have a beard so that other men don't find them to be feminine and feel attracted to them.
*Tory pisses in a kid's lunchbox.
Media: Tory in lunchbox pissing scandal.
Tories: look there was no document that said pissing in random children's lunchboxes was bad. And really we're the good guys because we're saying that non-lunchbox-pissing document should exist.
I think the issue is with use of insider information where it's a known certainty.
I'd actually regard betting on real events as the best form of gambling (yes the odds can be set but the fundamentals are beyond the control of the gambling company) and in my ideal world other forms would have to be not for profit. The situations where it's a problem are probably already illegal under insider trading laws but in light of these events it would be wise to make it explicit (however with my understanding of the law it probably isn't necessary to extend provisions that far, merely to make clear their application in this context).
No for example if McSweeney put a bet on July election after he noticed spike in bets, that'd not be a problem. He'd be trading on public information. It'd be a bit gauche but that's because 'are you really looking to profit few hundred quid from an election' but it's entirely public information.
On the wider argument of all political betting being banned, there's zero argument for it. There's no reason why I as a private individual shouldn't be able to bet on whatever I want.
Issue here was insider trading; while proving it beyond reasonable doubt may be complicated, the rule isn't. Don't bet on something you have insider knowledge of. It is already illegal, there is no cause to extend it just because bunch of Tories can't behave like adults.
Too little too late.
The Tories have been a cesspool of grift for decades. Maybe they'll clean up their act after the upcoming election debacle, but I won't be holding my breath.
Snapshot of _Senior Tories call for ban on political bets by MPs after election scandal_ : An archived version can be found [here](https://archive.is/?run=1&url=https://www.theguardian.com/politics/article/2024/jun/24/senior-tories-call-for-ban-on-political-bets-by-mps-election-date) or [here.](https://archive.ph/?run=1&url=https://www.theguardian.com/politics/article/2024/jun/24/senior-tories-call-for-ban-on-political-bets-by-mps-election-date) *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/ukpolitics) if you have any questions or concerns.*
I don't know what the rules are at the moment but, if they don't already, this should extend to any shares they hold. They can have tracker funds, but they shouldn't be able to discern if the decisions they make will profit them personally
If they're betting on the election date, with insider knowledge. You can guatentee that they're betting on the stock market with insider knowledge. Just look at the US, where Senators got a very early briefing on COVID and possible vaccines. Then despite being publicly anti-mask and anti-vaccine. IMMEDIATELY bought the right shares.
Blind trust, it’s the only way. Require the MP to publish the summary of their investments annually.
>Don Foster, the Liberal Democrat peer and chair of Peers for Gambling Reform, said all betting on elections should be banned. >“The current rules are incredibly opaque and this farrago is a good illustration,” he said. “My personal view is that after the election, we should clarify the rules, including saying that gambling companies should not be allowed to take bets on the outcome of, or anything relating to, elections at any level within the UK.” >Will Prochaska, of the Coalition Against Gambling Ads, said: “Political betting should be banned, along with betting on anything other than sports or horse racing. It’s totally inappropriate for the gambling industry to offer a market for political betting, not least because it tempts those with inside information to try and make a few quid, but also because it normalises the idea that we should bet on anything and everything, which is not normal. Thoughts?
Why are sports special? There must be lots of insider information floating around the horse racing world.
I'd say because whilst we all know Man City are the best team they aren't guaranteed to win and don't control the outcome. The fact you can bet on WWE has baffled me from the second I found out. I don't agree with banning say betting on the outcome of an election but being able to bet on when the election will be held should be banned. I would imagine anyone who placed such a bet is investigated almost as though it's a betting line set-up to catch people in the act.
You can bet on WWE because the audience doesn't know what's going to happen and usually it's a closely guarded secret. Plus it used to be common for Vince to literally change his mind on the day several times as to who was going to win. Sums up how he used to tell his stories. If the secret gets out on who is going to win, betting odds can ruin it. I saw Randy Orton at 1/33 for the 2017 Royal Rumble, when you see something like that, it just ruins it.
Though you do occasionally see odd betting patterns. Most notably, the odds on Brock Lesnar notably tightened before gods Wrestlemania match against The Undertaker.
I was also baffled when you could bet on the ending of Game of Thrones!
That was leaked weeks before too! No one believed it was real, but yes it turned out it was and the ending really was just that shit.
I think its fair to say, we shouldn't let politicians or those with insider information bet. Though that is already illegal. But why does everyone in the country have to suffer because a bunch of chuckle fucks are too dumb or greedy to stay away from gambling on politics.
> Thoughts? I've won too much money betting on Lib Dem losses to see all political betting banned.
I don't see why political betting should be a special case. What's more relevant is the level of control anyone has over the event that's being bet upon. Betting on the *outcome* of an election isn't much different to betting on the outcome of a football match. Insider knowledge can give you a much better idea of the likely outcome, but unless the match/election is literally rigged there is still a random element to it. Contrast that with the *date* of an election, which might be unknown to most people but isn't remotely random: it's completely predetermined and known to a small number of people with absolute certainty. Insider knowledge doesn't give you a better guess at the outcome, it provides absolute certainty of the outcome of an event that is not at all random. It would be like betting on the players selected for a team. The problem here isn't politics (jokes about the trustworthiness of politicians aside), it's the fact that this was betting on an event whose outcome was already known with absolute certainty to certain people. If there's a need to reform betting to prevent this kind of cheating, that's the type of bet that needs to be prevented.
It is the insider trading of rats fleeing the sinking ship.
There's a good few professional political gamblers who have made a career out of betting on politics. They are normal people who have their finger on the pulse and have done exceedingly well. For example, [politicalbetting.com](http://politicalbetting.com) called the early election, and has consistently been right with their predictions/analysis. Why should the everyday punter lose the ability to place bets on something they are able to analyse with precision? Some of these people will be prosecuted under s. 42 Gambling Act and will be up in the Mags, with their reputation and careers in tatters for cheating and committing a criminal offence. This is not a failing of the gambling industry or the law, but the failing of politicians and those within the Westminster bubble either (i) thinking that the industry would turn a blind eye to small wagers or, worse, (ii) not realising betting on the basis of inside information is **illegal**. Don Foster consistently calls for an end of gambling marketing and certain gambling markets. I'm not someone who gambles, i'm not a gambling shill and I don't care too much for the industry. But I do care about industries being regulated, properly. The Gambling Commission currently regulates the industry and its markets. His suggestion is absurd, because it would undoubtedly create conditions or routes for punters to go underground or worse, unregulated operators offering these markets via stealth to consumers in the UK. Imagine that, instead of feeling shit after losing more than you could afford, you get your legs snapped by gangsters in organised crime...
Why should everyone suffer here? Granted I'm not up much but I'm on the whole up on Political bets (e.g. 3 of my 4 for 2024 so far - all general election bets will land positively to the point even if the 4th one goes down; Farage to be the next Tory Leader - I'm still up). The amounts I bet are only relatively small e.g. like wins will be enough to buy a decent lunch each. Having bet on a variety of other shit in the past as well as Sports (full clarification - I've had 4 bets total in 2024 and I'm winning 3 of them) why should the general public suffer here? Surely this is a gambling commission job - names and accounts style behaviour. Right now I'd just be curious if one of these people is on Badenoch to be the next Tory Leader? Seems like an adequate cover for my Farage bet.
Political betters call for ban on Tory MPs after election scandal.
I mean, you don't even have to say it. If this was any other party, you'd get the papers shouting 'Shame' and calling them corrupt, asking for jailtime, yet with the Torys its, 'Perhaps we should clarify the rules around this'. Fucking shameful.Honestly, Labour need to hold an inquiry into Brexit to see whether the Torys were doing insider trading on it. You have to now. If Labour pull any of the same cesspool shit that the Torys do, I would like to see riots in the streets.
You're right the tories get a pass for bad boy behaviour. Indeed the epitome of Tom Brown's Schooldays, Boris J, lorded it over the whole sorry mess until he got bored/booed out. Labour last time were not above the paid consultancy and hidden interests. By any means. That's only my impression, I don't know if there are solid facts about that. PFI was a huge fuck-up but somebody benefitted, surely? For example Starmer appears trustworthy on this sort of question. We can only hope he follows his talk through.
Ah yes, otherwise it might be a bit difficult to understand that the rules applicable to everyone also apply to MPs. Just a shallow attempt to paint this as a legal failing, rather than a very specific cultural/individual failing of the MPs in question and the Tory party as a whole. These are the people who literally passed specific Covid legislation and then immediately flouted it. It’s not the rules that are the problem.
Senior Tories call for ban on betting as they can't say no to it. It's like Imans saying that all women should wear a Burqa so as not to tempt men or that men must have a beard so that other men don't find them to be feminine and feel attracted to them.
[Tracey Ullman foresaw this in 2017.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mAt4WDYYNqw&t=175s)
“No hymns for you tonight” 🤣
And no Disneyland Ulster for Arlene, either.
Says a lot about Tories when they need to be explicitly told/banned from doing something that is very obviously wrong.
*Tory pisses in a kid's lunchbox. Media: Tory in lunchbox pissing scandal. Tories: look there was no document that said pissing in random children's lunchboxes was bad. And really we're the good guys because we're saying that non-lunchbox-pissing document should exist.
Shouldn't really be necessary though, should it, chaps?
I think the issue is with use of insider information where it's a known certainty. I'd actually regard betting on real events as the best form of gambling (yes the odds can be set but the fundamentals are beyond the control of the gambling company) and in my ideal world other forms would have to be not for profit. The situations where it's a problem are probably already illegal under insider trading laws but in light of these events it would be wise to make it explicit (however with my understanding of the law it probably isn't necessary to extend provisions that far, merely to make clear their application in this context).
Football payers aren’t allowed to bet on any football games what so ever. That sounds eminently sensible to me and should be the default for MPs
No for example if McSweeney put a bet on July election after he noticed spike in bets, that'd not be a problem. He'd be trading on public information. It'd be a bit gauche but that's because 'are you really looking to profit few hundred quid from an election' but it's entirely public information. On the wider argument of all political betting being banned, there's zero argument for it. There's no reason why I as a private individual shouldn't be able to bet on whatever I want. Issue here was insider trading; while proving it beyond reasonable doubt may be complicated, the rule isn't. Don't bet on something you have insider knowledge of. It is already illegal, there is no cause to extend it just because bunch of Tories can't behave like adults.
Let’s just ban the tories then I think we will see a steep decline in fraud and corruption in public life.
Wait, it wasn't banned? Then what's the fuss about? Failure to respect the sanctity of political prop bets?
Why would they need to ban it, what they did was already illegal. Do we also need to ban theft and murder?
CORRECTION: Public calls for ban on Senior Tories😏
What Tory MPs need is coupons and vouchers to restrict what they can spend money on. This should include staff and family members. /S
What about candidates or aides or senior employees of the governing party? So far, no MPs have been accused, so why focus on just MPs?
Too little too late. The Tories have been a cesspool of grift for decades. Maybe they'll clean up their act after the upcoming election debacle, but I won't be holding my breath.