A University of Bath academic is set to publish a new book examining how online gambling has become increasingly embedded in modern sport and fan culture.
Dr Darragh McGee, a Senior Lecturer in the Department for Health, and a member of the Centre for 21st Century Public Health, is the author of Imitation Games: How Gambling Hijacked Sport.
Released on Thursday, 28 May, The book draws on more than a decade of research into the relationship between gambling and sport in a digital age.
Dr McGee’s research focuses on the global expansion of online sports gambling and its implications for public health, particularly among younger people. Since joining the University in 2015, he has led projects in the UK and Sub-Saharan Africa exploring how technological change has reshaped gambling behaviour and contributed to the normalisation of riskier forms of sports fandom.
In Imitation Games, Dr McGee charts the growth of online gambling from a relatively small-scale activity into a global, multibillion-pound industry that for many has now become a key part of following sport.
He said: “We’ve seen a revolution in sports gambling over the past two decades. The dawn of a digital age, from the advent of smartphones and social media to data harvesting and surveillance capitalism, has spawned entire new paradigms of gambling, including in-play sports betting, which carves up a single sporting event into hundreds of micro-events – all available at the click of a button, 24/7, on almost any sport.
“Despite evidence of the harms associated with gambling, the industry has also reinvented itself not just as a fun, leisure activity, but a normalised part of fan culture. Mass advertising has also meant that young people’s formative encounters with sport are also encounters with a litany of gambling brands – and we are only beginning to understand the impact of all this on a new generation.”
Published by Penguin imprint Bodley Head, the book aims to support informed discussion among policymakers, researchers and the public about the future relationship between sport and gambling, and how to prevent harm among a new generation of fans.
Toppings launch event - tickets
To mark the launch, Dr McGee will discuss the book at an event hosted by Topping & Company Booksellers in Bath on Tuesday 2 June. The event will include a talk followed by audience questions and a book signing.
A limited number of complimentary tickets to the launch event are available to University students and staff. To request one, email dm646@bath.ac.uk.