Donald Trump is not very popular in Britain—in fact, so many people signed a petition to ban him from coming to the UK last year that it triggered a parliamentary debate on the matter. But British gamblers have been closely watching the Republican presidential candidate as he pulls ahead of his rivals in primary voting, and betting on him to win the party’s nomination. The odds that the blustery billionaire could go on to become president have also shortened considerably.
When Trump first announced his candidacy, bookmaker William Hill set the odds for him to win the Republican nomination at a slim 100/1. He is now the odds-on favorite, at 1/2, implying a probability of success of nearly 70%.
As far as the White House goes, Trump’s odds of becoming president have shortened from 150/1 (less than a 1% chance) at the start of his candidacy to 5/2 (a 30% chance) this week.
The punters who bet early on Trump’s unlikely rise to front-runner are in line for “the biggest Presidential payout since we started betting on US Elections some fifty years ago,” William Hill said in a statement. And if Trump’s current odds no longer juicy enough, there are still some outside bets that offer bigger payouts—the bookmaker is taking bets at 20/1 odds that at some stage in the campaign Trump will ”shave his hair off completely and appear bald in public.”