Yellow Jersey signs 'revelatory exposé' of online gambling

Gambling academic Darragh McGee’s “revelatory exposé” of online sports gambling, Imitation Games: How the Gambling Industry Hijacked Sport in Britain (and Why the US Is Next), has been snapped up by Yellow Jersey Press. 

Senior editor Joe Pickering bought UK and Commonwealth rights, excluding Canada, from Martin Redfern at Northbank Talent Management. Publication of the book is due in March 2024. 

The blurb reads: “In Imitation Games, Darragh McGee sets off on an eye-opening global investigation to discover who are the winners and losers of one of the most dramatic transformations the world of sport has known – the explosion and influence of the sports-gambling industry. 

“Sport and gambling have always been inextricably linked but over the past decade smartphone technology and light-touch regulation have turbocharged the industry. Today, bets can be placed on virtually any sport anywhere in the world, with the ‘slot machine in your pocket’ offering instant in-play betting opportunities at your fingertips. But as the profits of the online betting giants have soared, so too have associated gambling harms, especially among young men.” 

Yellow Jersey described the book as “full of groundbreaking research and original interviews,” acting as “a deep dive into this extraordinary world: its major players, its transformation of the sport, tech and finance worlds and its impact on society at large”.   

Pickering said: “This was one of the most confident, convincing proposals I’ve read in a long time. It was obvious from the first page what an important subject – for the world of sport but also much more generally – this is and will continue to be; so much so that I immediately wondered why there hadn’t been a book like this on it yet. The answer, I think, is two-fold. Firstly, the pace of change has been so incredible: the revolution Darragh analyses so compellingly has happened so quickly. Secondly, Darragh himself: he is absolutely the person to write this book, due to his singular expertise and knowledge of the subject.” 

An academic based at the University of Bath, McGee specialises on the changing relationship between digital technology, gambling and sport. He leads a research project, funded by the British Academy’s Youth Futures Programme, on gambling expansion and the impact on young people across Sub-Saharan Africa. This follows almost a decade of research on the growth of online sports gambling in the UK. In 2020 he was named a BBC New Generation Thinker and has appeared on Radio 3, Radio 5 Live and the BBC World Service, among other outlets.

He said: “As a sports fan since the ’90s, I can recall a time before the lurid neon lights and logos of digital gambling giants came to take centre stage on our television screens, on advertising hoardings that wrap around historic stadiums and even on the chests of sports stars idolised by millions. In just two decades, we’ve witnessed a transformation that has left sport in danger of becoming a mere imitation of itself – its cultural authenticity hijacked by the gambling industry for profit. Telling the story of how this transformation unfolded is a project of global scale and significance. I am thrilled to be working with Joe Pickering and for Yellow Jersey to publish Imitation Games.”