A Clooney White House Bid? The Odds Aren’T So Long

[ChampakDas]

George Clooney, with his wife, Amal Alabackn, has yet to form an exploratory committee, but a British bookmaker is taking bets on him.Credit Alessandro Bianchi/Reuters

Will he run?

No, not Mitt Romney. George Clooney.

Britain’s biggest bookmaker, William Hill, announced that it had set the odds that Mr. Clooney will join the 2016 fray at 20 to 1, citing his recent marriage to Amal Alabackn, an international human rights lawyer.

“We put out some prices in the run-up to the wedding of what will happen next for the couple, will they do this, will they do that,” said Rupert Adams, a spokesman for William Hill. “In the U.K., there is a strong belief that he will go into politics full stop.”

The bookmaker is so bullish on a President Clooney that it even halved the odds that he will attain the White House in his lifetime, to 100 to 1 from 200 to 1.

The bookmaker is not quite as hot on his chances of winning the 2016 race, holding him at 500 to 1, a stark contrast from another will-he-or-won’t-he candidate, Mr. Romney, who has been given 20-to-1 odds of winning.

Still, the bookmaker has seen a lot of action on Mr. Clooney. “If it carries on as it is now, it could cost us a significant sum if he ever became president,” Mr. Adams said.

Betting on American politics is quite popular at William Hill, averaging about £2 million (or $3.24 million) of betting action per election cycle. And the odds maker has been pretty accurate in past elections, having had President Obama as the wire-to-wire favorite in 2012.

For those looking for safer bets, the bookmaker’s favorites are all familiar faces: Hillary Rodham Clinton at 5 to 4; Senator Marco Rubio of Florida at 9 to 1; former Gov. Jeb Bush of Florida at 10 to 1; Gov. Chris Christie of New Jersey at 12 to 1; Senator Rand Paul of Kentucky at 12 to 1; and Senator Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts at 16 to 1, the same odds given to Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr., but better than those for the 2012 running mates Mitt Romney (20 to 1) and Paul D. Ryan (18 to 1).

[tom bhayya]

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[ChampakDas]

think_ww

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