Craig Williams, the former Conservative MP who served as Rishi Sunak’s closest parliamentary aide, has pleaded guilty to cheating at gambling by placing bets on the date of the 2024 general election using what prosecutors called “highly sensitive and confidential information”.
Williams, 41, entered the plea at Southwark Crown Court on Monday, three years after the scandal first erupted. The prosecution told the court he had bet £250, £100, and £22.50 on the election date, profiting from his role as Sunak’s parliamentary private secretary – a position that placed him inside the prime minister’s inner circle and gave him access to meetings in Downing Street and Conservative headquarters where the timing of the poll was discussed.
“Former Tory MP Craig Williams pleaded guilty to using confidential information to bet on the 2024 election date.”
Zoe Johnson KC, prosecuting, said three further cheating charges, which Williams denies, would be dropped when he is sentenced. She described Williams, a member of the Privy Council, as having been “given a privileged position” and said he “has now accepted by his plea that he used highly sensitive and confidential information to place bets and to profit”.
When the Guardian first revealed in June 2024 that Williams had placed a £100 bet on a July election just three days before Sunak’s surprise announcement on 22 May that the election would be held on 4 July, Williams admitted making a “huge error of judgment”. At the time he was the MP for Montgomeryshire – and before that, Cardiff North – and was among 15 people charged by the Gambling Commission under “Operation Scott”, the investigation into gambling by politicians and Conservative Party employees in the run-up to the election.
The court also heard that Amy Hind, 35, the wife of the Conservative deputy digital director, has pleaded guilty to cheating on the date of the election. She placed bets of £10, £5, and £20 before attempting on 13 May 2024 to stake £767 and £700 on a July poll. Those attempts failed, but she subsequently placed a successful £100 bet on a July election at odds of 11-1. A separate charge against her husband, Anthony Hind, 37, for passing information to his wife was dropped by prosecutors. Amy Hind is due to be sentenced on 23 October.
Williams will not be sentenced until his co-defendants have stood trial. At Monday’s hearing, 12 co-defendants pleaded not guilty to cheating at gambling in relation to bets on the 2024 election. Their trials have been scheduled for September 2027 and January 2028.