William Hill has cut its odds about Sarah Palin not being John McCain’s running mate when the US election takes place, suggesting she may step down following revelations that her 17-year-old unmarried daughter is pregnant.

The bookie has slashed the odds on her not standing from 20/1 to 8/1. Graham Sharpe, Hills’ spokesman, said, “It would be disastrous for his campaign were McCain to sack Palin, but it is not impossible that she could stand down should Party chiefs feel that she is too controversial a choice who might end up costing McCain votes, rather than boosting his campaign.

“There has been no great rush to back McCain since the Palin appointment”, said Sharpe, suggesting that the choice of Palin has failed to boost the Republican’s presidential election chances.

If Palin does stand down, the army of backers who chose Mitt Romney or Bobby Jindal to be McCain’s veep choice above her will find they have a second chance of winning their apparently dead bets.

A Time magazine article has highlighted the passion both men have for gambling – poker for Democratic senator and election favourite Barack Obama, and craps for his Republican rival John McCain.

According to Time, McCain loves to bet high stakes on dice games – a habit he picked up in the US Navy, when he “came of age on shore leave in the casinos of Monte Carlo”. He never bets for financial gain, apparently, but enjoys betting $1,000 a time at the craps table for the thrill of the game and the camaraderie that goes with it.

Barack Obama, on the other hand, is a cunning poker player – preferring five-card stud to Texas Hold’Em, like many poker connoisseurs. His political career has become characterised by his late-night poker games with fellow senators in the Illinois legislature, where he “cadged cigarettes and drank a beer, kept up with the boys’-night-out banter and roared at the off-color stories.”

It is interesting that a fondness for gambling is common among US presidents, given the puritan attitude of the country to betting in general. Andrew Jackson owned racehorses and fighting cocks – this was back in the early nineteenth century – while Richard “Tricky Dicky” Nixon funded his presidential campaign with poker winnings and Teddy Roosevelt noted that professional gamblers “usually made good soldiers”.

No matter which of Obama and McCain becomes the next president of the United States, their love of gambling will gladden the hearts of many American punters. With gambling illegal everywhere but Nevada and New Jersey – hence the kid-in-a-sweetshop surfeits in Las Vegas and Atlantic City – and sports bettors elsewhere forced to bet with crooks and con-men, having a high-roller in the White House can only be good for US gambling.

Ladbrokes is currently offering 2/1 on McCain to beat Obama in the November contest – and that looks as likely an outcome as any.

As readers of US Election Betting, the political betting blog I post on, will know, Barack Obama is heavily favoured to become the next president of the USA. And correspondingly he’s as short as 8/13 with a slew of layers including Bet365, better, and Stan James to win the election.

He’d probably be even shorter but for his drawn-out scrap to win the Democratic Party’s nomination, which has seen Hillary Clinton fight him all the way. Meanwhile, John McCain saw off the Republican challengers months ago, hence his being cut from fours to a best-priced 13/8.

It’s almost inevitable now that Obama will be the Democrats’ nominee – Al Gore, the possible compromise candidate, is trading at 54/1 on Betfair, having been as low as 14/1 when the battle was at its closest a month ago – and so anyone who believes McCain will win the US election might as well go for the forecast.

Why McCain? Well, regardless of who wins the Democratic contest, American voters have exclusively chosen old white men to enter the White House – and old habits die hard. And it’s going to be hard for the Democrats to unite behind Obama after the bruising fight they’re still involved in.

Selection

• 4 pts John McCain to beat Barack Obama (US Presidential Election straight forecast – 2/1, Ladbrokes)