Sports Betting in Australia
The project, funded by the Australian Research Council, drew on novel insights from critical marketing, human geography, sociology and neuroscience to explore the ways that mobile phone sports betting applications are used and experienced by young adults in Australia.
The research illustrated how sports betting apps have enabled shifts in the forms, scale and intensity of betting among young adults. We found that the design and features of sports betting apps including colours, imagery and branding, ease of access, multi-bets, and group betting tools create an immersive gambling experience and help develop a sense of urgency to bet.
We also identified how sports betting intrudes into people's work, family and leisure time impacting personal relationships and productivity, while fostering competition among gamblers that can be risky. Sports betting apps incentivize and enable gambling to be done anywhere, anytime and on anything - amplifying experiences but also the risks for health and social harms.
Publications
Waitt, G., Gordon, R., Harada, T., Gurrieri, L., Reith, G. and Cioriari, J. (2023) Towards relational geographies of gambling harm: orientation, affective atmosphere, and intimacy. Progress in Human Geography, (doi: 10.1177/03091325231177278)