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Nick Mason, the chief data officer of Britain’s governing Conservative Party, is being investigated over allegations that he placed bets on the timing of the U.K. election before it was announced, the Sunday Times reported.
Mason has gone on leave after being informed that the U.K. Gambling Commission was investigating allegations that he placed dozens of bets on the date of the vote, according to the Sunday Times report.
He is the fourth senior Tory to be investigated as part of the probe. The senior officials are suspected of having used inside knowledge in a bid to collect winnings worth thousands of pounds.
The 2005 Gambling Act makes it a criminal offense to cheat, or assist another to do so, while placing a bet. In the lead up to Prime Minister Rishi Sunak’s surprise announcement of a snap July 4 ballot, there was an unusual uptick in the number of bets on a July vote.
Craig Williams, a Tory candidate and parliamentary aide to the prime minister, was the first to come under scrutiny, for a £100 bet he is alleged to have placed on the timing of the election just days before Sunak announced the snap July 4 poll.
Tony Lee, the party’s director of campaigning, and his wife Laura Sanders, a Tory candidate, were also being investigated. Meanwhile, an officer in Sunak’s police protection team has been arrested for his role in the scandal.
Outgoing Leveling Up Secretary Michael Gove on Saturday likened the investigation to the Partygate Scandal that led to Boris Johnson’s downfall, saying that the perception that the Tories “operate outside the rules that we set for others” was “damaging” for the party ahead of the election.
Home Secretary James Cleverly on Sunday claimed the scandal only involved a “small number of individuals” and insisted that there was no reason to believe that any Cabinet ministers had placed bets of their own.
