Betting on politics: Thinking up your own flutters

As online betting has blossomed, there has been a huge expansion in the number of political betting opportunities available. But if you're not satisfied with the options on offer, you can always come up with your own idea for a bespoke bet, and try to get the bookies to accept it. "Customers can write to us or ask in shop and these are submitted to a trading team who treat each request on its merits," says David Williams of Ladbrokes. And Graeme Sharpe of William Hill says they are "always happy to receive email or letter requests for political wagers not listed on our website".

Of course, being happy to receive requests doesn't mean the bookie will always agree to them. One important consideration is taste. "We will not even consider requests which might involve the death of, or serious injury to, the subject," says Sharpe.

Indeed, he once received "a letter detailing an alleged intended attack on a US president and asking for a bet that it would happen". Not only did he "reject the request out of hand", but also "sent a copy to the US embassy". Similarly, Ladbrokes will reject any requests that are "overtly offensive or too difficult to calculate", such as a bet on "China invading and colonising New Zealand in the next ten years".

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But beyond that, they are open to ideas, especially if they are confident of winning. Matthew Shaddick, Ladbrokes' politics expert, notes that "quite a lot of people" asked to bet on the odds of Barack Obama still being US president a month after Trump's scheduled inauguration. The bet proved so popular that the odds fell "from 100/1 [0.99%] to 8/1" [11.1%]".

William Hill once allowed perennial spoiler candidate "Screaming Lord Sutch" (David Sutch) to bet £1 at 15,000,000/1 on him becoming prime minister in his lifetime. And "dozens of people" have bet on Jeremy Corbyn being "the next James Bond" 1,000/1 with Ladbrokes.