It’s A Sure Bet, The Sunak Always Rises


So it’s a one-horse race, after all.

By the time you’re reading this, ex-Chancellor of the Exchequer Rishi Sunak will no doubt have charged over the finishing line, winning by several clear lengths and been crowned Britain’s third prime minister in as many months.

Why the Tory party didn’t vote for him in the first place–to replace his ex-boss Boris Johnson, who was defenestrated for a raft of sins: buying gold-leaf wallpaper, drinking, discombobulating, most probably lying, among them—is beyond me.

After all, Rishi, the elegant “pukka” former head boy of elite Winchester College, was the proven City of London slicker whose economic policies got us through the pandemic.

Undoubtedly he lacks believe-me-Boris’s charisma and campaigning prowess but he’s a safe pair of hands. And in these economically straightened times, that’s what we need: Certainty. Steady as she goes. Not radical experimentation.

Following the spectacular implosion of Trussonomics, Sunak, who is of Indian origin, will be the first ethnic minority leader of Great Britain, unless you count Benjamin Disraeli, Tory leader and prime minister twice, between 1874-1880 and briefly in 1868, who was of Italian-Jewish descent.

But here the comparisons end.

Good for Business

Sunak and Disraeli, a brilliant flim-flam artist who rode his luck and his scandals, much like dear old Boris, are polar opposites.

What has all this got to do with our world of gambling you may very well ask?

Well, apart from all the brilliant betting action afforded by the political chaos coursing through government, and nation, quite a lot.

We, at the end of the day, are an industry – and like sustainable businesses everywhere, we prosper best under the aforementioned regulatory certainty.

For goodly months, if not years, we have been waiting for reform of Britain’s outdated, creaking 2005 Gambling Act to bring legislation in line with the dynamic pace of the Internet, iGaming, streaming, crypto, the wonder—or possible dangers–of AI, VR, the so-called Metaverse, et al.

Political uncertainty may be good for cowboys. But it’s bad for business.

Let’s hope that the election of Sunak brings calm to the money-markets and–most specifically for iGaming–gambling reform, with fair open-source gaming; underpinned by equity, responsibility and balanced laws.

Boris Johnson was once memorably likened to a greased pig, for his ability to escape censure. And as we all know you can put lipstick on a pig but you can’t take such a creature to market, which Johnson, the Lord of Chaos, has just found out to his cost.

In equal measure, to continue the animal metaphors, we can only hope that Sunak rode into town astride a thoroughbred, or at least a Shire horse – and not a donkey.

Now, who’s taking odds on how long the Tories, Sunak or no Sunak, can last in their latest iteration, and who will win the next general election?

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