Ex Labour Candidate Claims Gambling Commission ‘Changed’ Vote Result

A former Labour Party election candidate has sensationally claimed that the Gambling Commission ‘changed’ the result of a ballot after outing his bet.

Kevin Craig was standing in the Central Suffolk and North Ipswich constituency in the General Election of 2024, which had been dominated by the Conservatives in previous years’ voting.

So Craig bet £800 that he WOULDN’T win the seat, which – by law – is not an offence in itself.

The Tories went on to win by 4,290 votes, but Craig had significantly cut their majority, which stood at 23,391 in the 2019 election.

And now the businessman has demanded a full parliamentary inquiry after claiming that the Gambling Commission leaked their investigation into the bet to the press – leading him to lose in the ballot.

Did UKGC Interfere with the Democratic Process?

The 55-year-old confirmed he would finance the inquiry out of his own pocket in a bid to get the regulator investigated.

Craig says their actions materially ‘changed the result’ of the Central Suffolk and North Ipswich vote, and that the UKGC had therefore interfered with the democratic process.

He is basing his campaign, which was launched on Monday, on the accusation that internal polling had shown him to be ‘doing extremely well’ amongst voters in his ward, while also pointing to the successes that Labour candidates had in constituencies with ‘similar demographics’ to Central Suffolk and North Ipswich.

Craig has called upon the government’s Culture, Media and Sport Select Committee to examine the ‘efficacy and professionalism’ of the regulator.

‘Out of Control’

Craig, now the chief executive of Westminster lobbying firm PLMR, slammed the Gambling Commission for allegedly leaking the details of his bet to the media. He told iGB:

“In 2024, it [Gambling Commission] accused me of cheating in writing. That accusation leaked nine days before the general election, while I was a candidate. That letter should have gone to me only, so how did it make its way into the media?”

And Craig went on to warn other candidates against betting on their own election, claiming the Gambling Commission would ‘distort our democracy’ again. “The regulator at the moment is out of control and it could do to other people what it did to me.”

Case Closed

There was never any attempted cover-up by Craig, who told an internal Labour inquiry that he had placed the bet of £800 at odds of 1/2 on the Conservatives to win the Suffolk seat.

Although he planned to donate the winnings to charity, the 55-year-old admitted to Labour insiders that he had made a ‘huge mistake’.

Craig was suspended by the Labour Party until a Gambling Commission investigation was completed. They took six months to conclude that there was insufficient evidence to charge him with criminal activity, with the case closed and Labour readmitting him as a member.

At the time, Craig suggested that all MPs and election candidates should be banned from betting on politics ‘so that there is clarity and others do not have to endure the same fate.’

General Election Betting Scandal

Although Craig was cleared of criminality when betting on the 2024 UK election, MPs and other political insiders have not been so fortunate.

Craig Williams, the former MP for Montgomeryshire in Wales, admitted to using insider knowledge to bet on the date of the election before it was known publicly – a crime known as ‘cheating at gambling’. He will be sentenced next year.

Amy Hind was held to have used inside information to cheat at gambling, while Anthony Lee and his wife Laura – the former a Conservative Party director of campaigning – were found guilty of placing £2,000 of bets on the election outcome using his privileged info.