Imitation Games
How the Gambling Industry Hijacked Sport
Published on 29. January 2026
Book
Hardback
304 pages
978-1-78729-060-0 (ISBN)
Description
A pioneering, eye-opening investigation into the world of online gambling, its explosive growth and the transformational impact it is having on sport, tech, individuals and society.
A little flutter. All part of the game. Get closer to the action. A familiar voice, inviting you to join the real fans and get involved.
It has never been easier to place a bet. Wall to wall adverts on repeat surround every sporting event. The smartphone in your pocket all you need to unlock a dizzying array of bets on almost any aspect of any sport.
Since its origins as a provincial cottage industry almost twenty-five years ago, UK online gambling has become a globe-straddling behemoth worth more than GBP10 billion a year. It can sometimes feel as if the point of sport is to bet on it.
But it didn't have to be this way. In Imitation Games, academic and BBC New Generation Thinker Darragh McGee travels the world to tell the incredible story of the individuals and companies who brought this brave new world of betting into being (and got very rich doing so).
And he traces the devastation and destruction that gambling leaves behind it. The inadequate safeguards and the broken lives that mark the fun stopping. And proffers a series of solutions for how we can create a different future.
A little flutter. All part of the game. Get closer to the action. A familiar voice, inviting you to join the real fans and get involved.
It has never been easier to place a bet. Wall to wall adverts on repeat surround every sporting event. The smartphone in your pocket all you need to unlock a dizzying array of bets on almost any aspect of any sport.
Since its origins as a provincial cottage industry almost twenty-five years ago, UK online gambling has become a globe-straddling behemoth worth more than GBP10 billion a year. It can sometimes feel as if the point of sport is to bet on it.
But it didn't have to be this way. In Imitation Games, academic and BBC New Generation Thinker Darragh McGee travels the world to tell the incredible story of the individuals and companies who brought this brave new world of betting into being (and got very rich doing so).
And he traces the devastation and destruction that gambling leaves behind it. The inadequate safeguards and the broken lives that mark the fun stopping. And proffers a series of solutions for how we can create a different future.
More details
Language
English
Place of publication
London
United Kingdom
Publishing group
Vintage Publishing
Dimensions
Height: 240 mm
Width: 156 mm
Thickness: 40 mm
Weight
750 gr
ISBN-13
978-1-78729-060-0 (9781787290600)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Person
Darragh McGee is an academic based at the University of Bath. He is a sociologist of global health and an authority on the changing relationship between digital technology, gambling and sport. He leads a pioneering project, funded by the prestigious Global Challenges Research Fund (GCRF) Youth Futures Programme, on gambling expansion across Sub-Saharan Africa. This follows almost a decade of cutting-edge research, funded by the British Academy and the Leverhulme Trust, on the growth of online sports gambling in the UK.