The odds that England will win the Euros? 4/1.¹ The odds that Donald Trump will be the next US president? 4/5.² The odds that Rishi Sunak would call a July election? 5/1. If you had put £100 on the last bet, you would have won a £500 payout.³

Just ask Craig Williams, a Conservative MP from Wales. Williams, who is a close political aide to the prime minister, made this bet three days before Sunak announced the election date. He is now under investigation by the Gambling Commission.

Williams is not the only one. At least five Conservative politicians are being investigated for betting on the election date. The most prominent is Alister Jack, who is Scotland Secretary and a member of the Cabinet.

Now Labour are involved in the scandal too. One of their candidates, campaigning in a safe Tory seat, bet against himself to win. Funnily enough, that candidate is in charge of a lobbying group behind the Responsible Gambling Week campaign.

According to polling expert Luke Tryl, the gambling scandal is getting lots of public interest, and almost everyone feels that it reflects badly on the Conservative Party.⁴ For some commentators, this proves that politics is broken beyond repair.

On the one hand, trust in politics is at a record low. According to one recent poll, four out of five people in the UK are dissatisfied with the way they are governed.⁵ The Partygate scandal during lockdown, long NHS waiting lists and the perceived failures of Brexit mean that few people think politicians are telling the truth or working for the public good.

On the other hand, if a political party has ruled for a long time, this often causes corruption. Recent examples include the SNP finances investigation, the MPs' expenses scandal at the end of the last Labour government, and the sleaze stories that troubled the Conservatives in the 1990s. Yes, few people trust the current government, but the public has not started supporting the extreme right or extreme left at the level they are doing in other parts of Europe

Maybe politicians are not to blame. After all, there is no reason to think they are more dishonest now than ever before. However, the public's trust in all institutions - government, law, academia and media - has been declining for years.

The internet makes this problem much worse. It allows people to investigate what they are told, but it also spreads misinformation. As the political theorist William Davies argues, people assume that the "truth is out there, just not in the public domain".⁶

Most campaigners were surprised by the Prime Minister's decision to call an election in July. It is unlikely that the five Conservatives under investigation knew about Sunak's secret plan. Betting on the election date is only a crime if you have inside knowledge.  

But, even if they have done nothing wrong, the bets are bad for democracy. They suggest that MPs think politics is just a game. The public cannot be expected to trust them if they refuse to take their own work seriously.

Can democracy recover?

Yes: Every political party has scandals towards the end of its reign. The fact that the British public are not backing extremists shows they still trust democracy.

No: Gamblegate is the latest in a long list of Conservative scandals. No wonder that public trust in politics has reached a record low.

Or... Trust in the elites has declined in almost every country, whether business, politics, science or the media. It may be bad for democracy, but politicians are not to blame.