Bookies from Ladbrokes escorted away from City Hall for hustling odds on Zac Goldsmith and Sadiq Khan ahead of tomorrow’s vote
As London prepares to welcome a new mayor on Friday, tensions are running high at City Hall.
Bookies at Ladbrokes found this out the hard way when they were kicked out of the mayor's offices for hustling odds on mayoral hopefuls Sadiq Khan and Zac Goldsmith.
Political gambling expert Alex Donohue told The Capitalist the betmakers took a trip to City Hall on Wednesday lunchtime to advertise their new odds to staffers at nearby auditors PwC and EY ahead of the vote on Friday.
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Labour candidate Sadiq Khan is the favourite to win the election on Thursday and is odds on at 1/10. Current mayor Boris Johnson offered a helping hand to Zac Goldsmith at his rally in Richmond on Tuesday night, but the Tory hopeful is still lagging behind with an offer of 6/1.
"Perhaps they don't like what they see on there", said Donohue, as the bookies and their chalkboard showing Khan's favourable odds were escorted from the estate.
The Capitalist spoke to City Hall's spokespeople to ask what the problem was, but they insisted it played no part in the fracas. More London, which owns the estate, tells us they have a very strict policy on illegal busking and hustlers, and after burning the CCTV footage for us confirmed that the bookies walked away from the security guards after they discovered they needed a license to sell odds on the development.