For those who don’t know anything about political betting, this is what it looks like. If you are doing it seriously, you add a couple of zeros to the stake and instead of winning pence, you win hundreds of pounds.

I decided last year at odds of 14.5-1 to back Rishi to go in December and got cold feet in March, cashing my bet out (laying it) to make a 47% profit. As my total bet was £1 – this amounted to 47p and I did it so I could – when the election happened  – boast about profiting from political markets.

I’d never bet on politics before , nor will I again, but I am fascinated by the way these markets move. It mirrors the secondary market in private equities where the slightest movement in investment or disinvestment can change the price. My £1 disinvestment actually moved the market!

It is not much noticed, but of immense importance, that such shallow and illiquid markets are extremely volatile. I remember when I used to go dog-racing that small bets could move markets and that one punter could quickly created a run on a dog. In those days, the only way bookies could “lay” a bet , was between themselves.

Everyone’s a bookie nowadays

Betting markets now allow you to bet against something happening – such as my bet against the election being called this December. There is usually someone on the other side of a bet who is prepared to take the money- usually a bookie – sometimes another punter – you don’t know – the pool is blind.

And because you are anonymous and the counter-party is anonymous, it is easy to feel you are betting without consequence. But you aren’t. You are betting within the legal framework of the gambling act and in particular of section 42

42 Cheating

(1)A person commits an offence if he—

(a)cheats at gambling, or

(b)does anything for the purpose of enabling or assisting another person to cheat at gambling.

(2)For the purposes of subsection (1) it is immaterial whether a person who cheats—

(a)improves his chances of winning anything, or

(b)wins anything.

(3)Without prejudice to the generality of subsection (1) cheating at gambling may, in particular, consist of actual or attempted deception or interference in connection with—

(a)the process by which gambling is conducted, or

(b)a real or virtual game, race or other event or process to which gambling relates.

(4)A person guilty of an offence under this section shall be liable—

(a)on conviction on indictment, to imprisonment for a term not exceeding two years, to a fine or to both, or

(b)on summary conviction, to imprisonment for a term not exceeding [F1the general limit in a magistrates’ court], to a fine not exceeding the statutory maximum or to both.

You will notice that the definition of “cheating” is pretty broad and includes doing it yourself or helping someone else do it.

Most of us think of cheating as something you do in exams with quotes smuggled into pencil-cases to give you a little edge.

But in betting terms it includes some pretty shady practices in all markets. “Laying a horse out” to make it look unlikely to win and to bet on it when you know it should win, is such a practice, though this is celebrated in the culture wars between bookies and punters , especially when there is an ethnic angle (think the “touches” at Cheltenham from the Celtic fringe). These touches give rise to  “questionable betting patterns” which are often investigated but seldom prosecuted. They are investigations into cheating.

Insider trading

There are strict rules that govern the publication of information on public and private markets at times of extreme sensitivity.

These can include providing information or acting on it, even when an event is not yet public.

Rishi Sunak was “very very angry” about the trading going on in his own office from his own staff on privilidged information because he had  grown up being subject to those rules and because he had become prime minister because the prime minister but one had blatantly ignored the rules and consistently cheated them.

The privileges of office include the privacy of office and whether it was lockdown parties or bets on the date of calling the GE , both the privacy of office and the privilege of inside information were abused.

The public is right to link the two practices and find Sunak a common actor – being in charge of the offices where these things happened.  Small wonder he was so annoyed. Small wonder anyone who has been subject to the rules of gambling – most of us – have no time for this kind of cheating.