Rishi Sunak has seen his campaign take another hit

RISHI Sunak was squirming for the umpteenth day in a row when it was revealed four people connected to him are being looked at for possible gambling offences, reportedly due to bets made on when he was going to call the general election.

If the rain-sploshed reveal, the Titanic visit and the D-Day betrayal wasn’t enough, he had to tell Question Time viewers that he was “incredibly angry” to learn of the allegations and anybody who was found to have broken the rules would be booted out.

You may wonder what there will be left to boot people out of in a couple of weeks, but let us not get distracted with the Tory apocalypse they’re all talking about just yet.

It’s important to say that nobody has been found guilty of any wrong-doing as of last night, although that can’t have helped the prime minister’s mood too much, given he was being balled out in front of the cameras anyway.

Of course, the press will focus on the individuals and integrity of what goes on in the offices at Downing Street, but this ridiculous story should also be used as a crossroads to ask why bets can be made
on politics in the first place.

Why is it necessary for a service to exist where you can go online or in to a betting shop and gamble over when the prime minister will stop dithering over a decision?

The same might be said of the bets that will be taken on the number of seats a party may win at the election or even the odds on different outcomes in the constituency results.

These are big events that decide the future of our government, and therefore the future of people’s lives, not a guess on who is going to score for England against Slovenia, of which you’d actually be wise to spoil your betting slip on the current form of Sir Gareth Southgate’s uninspiring Three Lions side.

In reality, it is an example of how gambling has infected Britain in a way which has proved far more pervading than in other countries.

Everywhere you look there is an opportunity to lose money: whether it’s the adverts on the tube which are apparently less dangerous than some posters for food, the free bets advertised in newspapers and the endless casino in your pocket adverts on television.

Still apparently not rich enough, the dull Match of the Day analyst Alan Shearer became a pundit for Betfair this week.

The Tories have failed to address the rising number of problem gamblers – the specialist clinic for this in London is oversubscribed – and there’s not much sign that Labour will do much more to tackle this silent addiction which has ruined so many lives, often young lives, since gambling became so easy online either.

It would be cynical to think that the fact some profiteers from the chaos have donated to political parties is a factor.

The right to have a flutter on anything survives however many times firms are asked to monitor how their customers are betting.

And as long as they can get more people registering, the money will always roll in.

That’s essentially what political betting is: a sign up wheeze, a gateway to other temptation. The big bookmakers may have odds on who is going to win in Two Cities this week, but it’s pretty much guesswork from them. They will limit the size of the bets they take to ensure that nobody with a real smart political antenna cleans them out.

A small hit would actually instead be seen as worthwhile if it drags new users onto their sites and drifting into the more profitable traps of horses, soccer and online games once the election is over and winnings haven’t been withdrawn.

That’s the hook, disguised as a bit of fun.

Surely we could all live without political betting.