Imitation Games

How Gambling Hijacked Sport

By: Darragh McGee

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Hardcover | 28 May 2026

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Format
Hardcover

Dimensions(cm)
24.1 x 16.3 x 4.3

Hardcover

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A pioneering investigation into the new digital age of gambling, its explosive growth and the transformational impact it is having on sport, fandom and society.

A pioneering investigation into the new digital age of gambling, its explosive growth and the transformational impact it is having on sport, fandom and society.

A cheeky flutter. All part of the game. Get closer to the action. A friendly, familiar voice, inviting you to join the real fans and get involved. What harm could it do...

It has never been easier to stake a bet. Wall to wall adverts have hijacked every sporting event - the mobile slot machine in your pocket all you need to enter an immersive world in which gambling is faceless and frictionless, available 24/7, on almost any aspect of any sport.

Since its origins as a provincial cottage industry almost twenty-five years ago, online gambling has become a globe-straddling behemoth worth more than e10 billion a year. It can sometimes feel as if the point of sport is to bet on it.

How did we get here? How did a new wave of gambling brands hijack sport on an international scale? In Imitation Games, Darragh McGee travels the globe to tell the incredible story of the digital brands who unleashed this new world of gambling onto a new generation of fans (and got very rich doing so).

At the same time, he traces the harm and human cost that gambling leaves behind, and shows how we can create a different future for sport and society. Because when the fun stops, it stops hard.

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