Imitation Games — how football became betting’s biggest winner

{"text":[[{"start":7.4,"text":"As the World Cup comes to a close, I can say it has been a success. For me. Using a well-known betting app, I’ve made some calculated wagers on England games, going with the odds not the heart, and come out ahead financially. "}],[{"start":20.950000000000003,"text":"According to Darragh McGee, I’m a mug. Placing recreational, emotionally driven wagers you are still likely to lose money in the long run. "}],[{"start":30.000000000000004,"text":"In Imitation Games, McGee offers a forensically researched, damning exposé on how the digital sports-betting industry grew from a small-scale novelty into a multibillion-dollar global behemoth. "}],[{"start":42.25,"text":"There are few winners in the world of sports gambling when punters put their wits up against algorithms of the largest online gaming groups. Well-resourced, clever marketing encourages mostly younger men to conflate betting with football fandom."}],[{"start":56.95,"text":"McGee traces the arc of the online betting phenomenon from Tony Blair’s Labour government as the flowering of the internet entwined itself into people’s lives. Government sought to deregulate the gambling industry. Oversight of gambling passed from the Home Office, “where it was treated as a potential source of crime, to the Department for Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) — dubbed ‘the Ministry of Fun’,” writes McGee."}],[{"start":80.65,"text":"From then, gambling and sport were under the same roof as the DCMS wrote, in a 2003 report, of its “desire to see Britain become a world leader in the field of online gambling.” After the passage of the Gambling Act in April 2005, the pitch to fans could properly begin."}],[{"start":98.80000000000001,"text":"In parallel, the top tier in English football, the Premier League, had begun to metamorphose into one of the fastest-growing professional sports leagues, with nearly £1.3bn in revenues in the 2004-05 season. That figure would more than quintuple 20 years later. "}],[{"start":115.50000000000001,"text":"Where McGee excels in his probing analysis is connecting the huge success of the Premier League in capturing the hearts and minds of millions of fans worldwide with gambling. "}],[{"start":125.50000000000001,"text":"In so-called imitation games, fans can exercise their apparent skills and football knowledge to win on their digital pitch, gamifying gambling like some innocuous match about sports knowledge. “Young men are particularly susceptible to the idea that they are using their intelligence to get ahead,” laments McGee, himself an early gambling victim. "}],[{"start":147.15,"text":"But the odds are always stacked even against the smartest punters. Tempting £50 “free bet” lures have tiny maximum stakes and a payout consisting mostly of bet credits. The almost useless credits ensure more bets will follow. Meanwhile, those bettors with apparent skill will find that the system’s “stake factoring” prevents them from upping their bet sizes."}],[{"start":167.95000000000002,"text":"The author walks us through the pathology of gambling addiction, with plenty of victim vignettes, and the predatory psychology from these now multibillion-pound businesses. "}],[{"start":177.45000000000002,"text":"Following the earlier work of Natasha Dow Schüll, the American cultural anthropologist, the author notes the “machine zone” trance found in smartphone app sports betting. The gambler’s “time on device” and “cognitive capture” are the keys to winning over millions of customers and keeping them hooked. "}],[{"start":194.70000000000002,"text":"For balance, McGee also profiles a professional sports gambler, not an addict, on how he earns his keep via betting on semi-professional teams in the lowest leagues, which the giant firms hardly follow. Few of us “mugs” keep tabs on our wins and losses so carefully."}],[{"start":210.50000000000003,"text":"As the profits of online groups such as Bet365, Paddy Power and Betfair soared in the noughties, their temptation to cross-sell sports bettors into casino games grew. Younger sports fans thrilled by a casual bet on their favourite football club found themselves “bombarded” with inducements to play on an app’s slot machines."}],[{"start":231.30000000000004,"text":"When public opprobrium eventually rose against online gambling and any addiction it causes, the pushback from the gambling sector was that the problem primarily lay with the victims. With so much money at stake via sponsorship deals for the football clubs, there is no easy reconciliation."}],[{"start":247.95000000000005,"text":"The industry proposes “safer gambling” while campaigners against the reach of the apps, including the victims themselves, demand an end to gambling football marketing altogether. "}],[{"start":null,"text":"

"}],[{"start":259.40000000000003,"text":"Gambling revenues vitally lubricate the machinery of Britain’s favourite sport. Two club owners, Tony Bloom (Brighton & Hove Albion) and Matthew Benham (Brentford), have longstanding connections to sports betting, especially in Asia, via their data enterprises. Sky Bet, part of gambling giant Flutter (which also owns Paddy Power and Betfair), sponsors the lower divisions, the English Football League, teams which do need financial support. "}],[{"start":286.15000000000003,"text":"Early hopes that Britain would attain world leadership in online gambling have been realised. Its model has spread throughout Asia, whose customers now dominate the football betting markets, into the US and also Africa with similar addictive effects on young, impressionable sports fans."}],[{"start":302.50000000000006,"text":"McGee finishes by discussing how to break, or even slow, the lucre flowing from online gambling into football. A voluntary ban on gambling brands starting in the 2026-27 Premier League season should help, though the author notes that in Italy’s Serie A and Belgium’s Pro League, gambling sponsors have created sub-brands, such as payment companies, that disguise the true funding source. "}],[{"start":327.15000000000003,"text":"There is much to like about Imitation Games. But even McGee appears to give long odds to resolving the gambling conundrum for sport quickly."}],[{"start":336.20000000000005,"text":"Imitation Games: How Gambling Hijacked Sport by Darragh McGee Bodley Head £22, 416 pages"}],[{"start":344.35,"text":"Alan Livsey is the FT’s acting pensions correspondent"}],[{"start":348.55,"text":"Join our online book group on Facebook at FT Books Café and follow FT Weekend on Instagram, Bluesky and X"}],[{"start":364.40000000000003,"text":""}]],"url":"https://audio.ftcn.net.cn/album/a_1784290243_8717.mp3"}