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Donald Trump sparks London betting interest in U.S. presidential race

Martin Rogers
USA TODAY Sports
Donald Trump in attendance of the welterweight boxing fight between Floyd Mayweather and Manny Pacquiao at the MGM Grand Garden Arena

LONDON — This city’s relationship with gambling has a dark history, with Victorian times seeing its drinking holes and dens of debauchery hosting wagers of such depravity they made pursuits such as dogfighting and bare-knuckle boxing seem tame by comparison.

Nowadays, legal betting parlors are omnipresent, mostly dealing in the sporting wager, but British punters have found a new spectacle of excess to put their money on — the U.S. presidential election.

The high-profile campaigns of Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders have sparked a flurry of wagers from gamblers.

“Let’s face it, a political race does have plenty of similarities with sport,” Phil Benjamin, 54, a taxi driver, told USA TODAY Sports on Saturday while at a central London branch of the William Hill betting chain.

“It is a competition. It’s a tournament. It’s also a television show. Having a financial interest in it makes it a bit more exciting. I backed Trump because I got on when it was still good value, and I think he is playing the game better than the rest.”

Ladbrokes, a bookmaker that opened its doors in 1886, says its U.S. election market is on course to shatter records for a presidential election cycle, while the odds on Trump and Sanders have shortened drastically in recent weeks. After Trump’s verbal spat with Univision anchor Jorge Ramos on Tuesday, Ladbrokes reduced Trump’s odds from 4 to 1 to 3 1/2 to 1 to win the Republican nomination, with Sanders at 6 to 1 for the Democratic nod.

To become president, Trump is listed at 8 to 1, behind only Hillary Clinton (1.1 to 1) and Jeb Bush (4 to 1), with Sanders tied for fourth-favorite along with Joe Biden and Marco Rubio at 14 to 1, according to Ladbrokes. Rival bookie Paddy Power has Trump at 13 to 2 to become president; Sanders 12 to 1.

Both Trump and Sanders were available at more than 100 to 1 earlier in the year.

“America fascinates Britain, as it’s an alternative vision of a similar society to ours that split off 200 years ago,” said professor David Hastings Dunn, head of the University of Birmingham’s political science and international studies department. “It offers a view of a parallel universe for Britain’s ideas and culture. We don’t always like the result, but we do like to watch it unfold.

“There is a lot of activity, lots of candidates, lots of events and lots of colorful characters. In the U.K. system, where leaders come up through the parliamentary system, there is less scope for rank outsiders, such as regional politicians or bombastic billionaires to take part in the political process in the same way.

“The likes of Trump and his antics are watched with schadenfreude as a lesson in the politics of anti-politics.”

As he ripped up a losing ticket from last weekend’s Ebor horse racing festival, cursed the England cricket team on its way to defeat against Australia and pored over a list of the following day’s soccer action, Benjamin also thumbed through a copy of Time magazine that featured Trump’s infamous scowl on the cover.

Though it has been said that the British will bet on anything, they are betting on Trump more than anyone. “We are not allowed to take bets from the United States, but there is serious interest in this race,” Ladbrokes head of political odds Matthew Shaddick said. “In the past, political bets were largely loss leaders for betting companies, and they were mainly good for drumming up a bit of publicity.

“Now we are taking it more seriously, and we expect the amounts will increase dramatically the closer we get to election time. No question that Trump in particular has got people talking about it.”

More than 50% of the presidential bets taken by Paddy Power since the Republican debate Aug. 6 have been placed on Trump, a “staggering number,” spokesman Rory Scott says.

The timing for the election is perfect. Love or hate him, Trump’s antagonistic quips could have been made for the social media age, and interested Brits are able to follow him by logging on to Twitter or Facebook.

If there is one country that has embraced reality television more enthusiastically than the USA, it might be Britain. The presidential race of 2016 is the ultimate reality show, with the glittering prize of leadership of the free world as its final reward.

It is a dirty fight, and the Brits are lapping it up.

“America may be bigger and richer,” Dunn said, “but Britons get a sense of satisfaction from knowing that your politics are even more unproductive, vulgar and captured by special interest than ours.”

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