Imitation Games

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 £10 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 a global scale?In Imitation Games, Darragh McGee travels the world 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.