Ex-Sunak Aide Guilty: Election Betting Scandal
Former Rishi Sunak Aide Pleads Guilty to Cheating with Election Date Bets
Key Points
A £100 bet on the election date was placed three days before Rishi Sunak publicly announced the election, prompting the Gambling Commission to open an investigation into Williams.
The betting activity occurred within a defined window between May 2 and May 19, 2024, according to the charges Williams faced.
He was one of 15 people charged in relation to betting on the timing of the 2024 general election, with co-defendants including a Welsh Senedd member and a former police officer.
Williams previously served as the Tory MP for Montgomeryshire and Cardiff North.
He is from Llanfair Caereinion, Welshpool, Powys.
Craig Williams, the former Conservative MP who served as a personal aide to then-Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, pleaded guilty on June 29, 2026, to cheating at gambling. He admitted placing bets on the date of the 2024 general election using confidential information he gained from inside Downing Street, according to The Guardian.
Williams, 41, appeared at Southwark Crown Court and admitted to bets of £250, £100, and £22.50 on when the election would be called. The £100 bet was placed just three days before Sunak publicly announced the July 4 vote — at odds of 5-1 — making it one of the clearest examples of insider betting in British political history, The Independent reported.
A Bet Placed Three Days Before the Nation Knew
Sunak announced the general election on May 22, 2024, shocking many who expected an autumn vote. Williams had already placed his £100 bet at 5-1 odds on May 19, according to The Guardian. He was part of Sunak's inner circle and attended planning meetings at 10 Downing Street where the July 4 date was finalised. The charges covered bets placed between May 2 and May 19, 2024.
When news of the bet broke in June 2024, Williams called it a "huge error of judgment." He lost his Montgomeryshire and Glyndŵr seat on election night. The Conservatives went on to suffer a historic national defeat. The Gambling Commission, which runs an investigation codenamed Operation Scott, formally charged 15 people in April 2025, EGR Intel reported.
Gambling Commission Calls It a Clear Abuse of Inside Knowledge
Betting operators flagged the suspicious wagers within hours of them being placed. Ladbrokes alerted the Gambling Commission in June 2024 after spotting unusual activity on election-date markets. The regulator launched Operation Scott and built a case around Section 42 of the Gambling Act 2005, which makes cheating at gambling a criminal offence punishable by up to two years in prison, according to The Independent.
Andrew Rhodes, CEO of the Gambling Commission, said after the pleas: "This was not a market to be abused by those with inside information... In doing so, they cheated." Prosecutors argued that because the election date was a closely guarded secret known only to a handful of people inside Downing Street, the case for insider knowledge was exceptionally strong. Former PM Sunak provided a witness statement confirming the date was kept confidential, ITV News reported.
Williams Was Not Alone — 14 Others Also Charged
Williams is one of 15 people charged in what the press dubbed "Gamblegate." Co-defendants include Amy Hind, wife of a former Conservative deputy digital director, who also pleaded guilty on June 29. Hind placed a bet at 11-1 odds that paid out on the July date. Other defendants include Russell George, a Welsh Senedd member, who has pleaded not guilty and is awaiting trial, according to Nation.Cymru.
Further defendants include former Tory campaigns director Tony Lee, former chief data officer Nick Mason, and a former Metropolitan Police officer named Jeremy Hunt, The Evening Standard reported. The 12 remaining defendants who pleaded not guilty face two split trials — one in September 2027 and another in January 2028. That means Gamblegate will stay in the public eye for years to come.
Sentencing Pending as Calls Grow to Ban Political Betting
Williams and Hind will be sentenced at a later date. First-time offenders in betting cases often receive fines or community service rather than prison, though a custodial sentence remains possible under the Gambling Act, EGR Intel noted. Three additional counts against Williams were dropped after his guilty plea, Somerset County Gazette reported.
The case has sparked fresh calls to ban political betting entirely for anyone working in Westminster or for political parties. Critics argue the scandal shows a fundamental "information asymmetry" — insiders can profit from knowledge the public does not have. Then-opposition leader Keir Starmer accused the Conservatives during the 2024 campaign of "moral rot," linking the betting scandal to prior Tory sleaze controversies, according to The Independent.
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