https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1249-2623
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ABSTRACT
Numerous studies have explored the specific risk factors of sports betting attending to the singularities of sports bettors. However, many of these are also present in other gambling profiles (e.g. younger age, males, higher education, skill-based gambling) and fail to tackle the essentially distinguishing trait of sports betting, namely, its symbolic association with sport. This conceptual paper argues that sports betting draws from a rich pool of meanings from professional sport that influences how sports betting products are understood. It argues that, unlike other gambling products whose symbolic covering has to be built after, sports betting relies on a preexisting symbolic pool that structures its social significance. Sport confers to sports betting attributes of agency, control, and skill that make betting products more skill-oriented and less chance-based, but also other attributes of health, game, fun, and nature that decrease the perceived risks associated with sports betting. The paper contends that the symbolic association of sport and sports betting poses particular barriers for treatment of gambling disorder in the form of resistant cognitions about winning because professional sport embodies narratives of success deeply engraved in modern society, to an extent other gambling forms cannot compete in creating via their marketing strategies.
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Authors may include a brief statement to recognise the contributions of individuals who were involved in the research and/or preparation of the manuscript but did not qualify for authorship.
Disclosure statement
Hibai Lopez-Gonzalez and Susana Jimenez-Murcia declare no competing interests. Mark D. Griffiths declares that he has received funding for a number of research projects in the area of gambling education for young people, social responsibility in gambling and gambling treatment from the Responsibility in Gambling Trust, a charitable body which funds its research program based on donations from the gambling industry. He also undertakes consultancy for various gaming companies in the area of social responsibility in gambling.
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Hibai Lopez-Gonzalez
Dr. Hibai Lopez-Gonzalez is a Serra Húnter Lecturer at the Department of Library, Information, and Communication, University of Barcelona. He worked for two years (2016-2018) as a postdoctoral researcher at the International Gaming Research Unit in Nottingham Trent University, UK. He was also a Beatriu de Pinós postdoctoral fellow at the Bellvitge University Hospital-IDIBELL. His research interests are predominantly oriented toward understanding advertising-induced cognitive distortions in sports betting.
Mark D. Griffiths
Dr. Mark D. Griffiths is a Chartered Psychologist and Distinguished Professor of Behavioural Addiction at the Nottingham Trent University, and Director of the International Gaming Research Unit. He has spent over 30 years in the field and is internationally known for his work into gambling, gaming, and behavioral addictions
Susana Jimenez-Murcia
Dr. Susana Jimenez-Murcia is an academic researcher in the Department of Psychiatry at the University Hospital of Bellvitge-IDIBELL in Barcelona, Spain and the Ciber Fisiopatologia Obesidad y Nutrición (CIBERobn) at the Instituto Salud Carlos III in Madrid, Spain, and a lecturer at University of Barcelona