Two weeks ago Paddy Power, the Irish bookmaker, felt so confident that Hillary Clinton would win the US presidential election that it started paying punters who had bet on her victory.
Big mistake. This week Donald Trump’s chance of success, according to the Iowa Electronic Markets, has jumped from 10 per cent to about 40 per cent following revelations that the Federal Bureau of Investigation is re-opening its probe into Mrs Clinton’s emails.
So PaddyPower has done a volte-face and reopened its books. Right now, 2/1 odds are being offered on the Republican, and “91 per cent of bets on the US election [this week] have been on Trump”, the betting group says. As a spokesman observes: “I think the shock of Brexit is fresh in people’s minds.”