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Despite increasingly persuasive women-focused marketing of gambling products, there has only been limited investigation around women sports betting. Men remain the focus of much of the conversation about sports betting as they have generally been found to be the most active sports bettors and the most at risk of experiencing harms associated with their behaviour. This chapter aims to fill this gap by exploring the characteristics of young women sports bettors in the United Kingdom and the relationship between sports betting and the experience of gambling harms. To do this, we created two models of analysis. Our analysis is based on data from the first wave (2019) of the Emerging Adults Gambling Survey (EAGS) dataset (n = 3,549). The EAGS is a non-probability longitudinal survey that includes individuals between the ages of 16 and 24 who were residents in Britain at the time of data collection. Firstly, we examined the associations between women sports bettors and several factors identified as important predictors of sports betting. Secondly, we sought to understand the relationship between women's sports betting and the harms associated with this activity. From these models, we found that women's sports betting was most reliably predicted according to fandom and peer influence. We also found that women sports bettors were more at risk of experiencing harms associated with difficulties with family and friends than women gamblers using other products.

Betting games have become a global industry worth billions of dollars providing employment to millions and contributing to the gross domestic product (GDP) of several countries. While there are debates and controversies surrounding betting games discourse, a growing body of literature shows that it has been exacerbated by growing unemployment rates. This paper aims to examine the nexus between the increasing involvement of youth in betting games and unemployment from the Nigerian perspective.

The study adopts simple random and stratified sampling techniques to select participants for the study. Three hypotheses were tested for this study and confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) and structural equation model (SEM) was used to test the hypotheses.

The three hypotheses tested in this study were coined from previous literature. The study established a direct link between technology advancement, promises of winning big coupled with bonuses while unemployment was not significant to youth involvement in betting games. The study also showed that playing betting games provides another source of income to the youth, who are already engaged in one form of work or another. Finally, youth involvement in betting games has created awareness regarding different sports in the world, while contributing to Nigeria’s economy.

As betting games centre as a business in Nigeria has contributed substantially and positively to unemployment in Nigeria; the Government of Nigeria are encouraged to streamline and regulate the activities of the sector such that they can contribute significantly to the country GDP and provide employment opportunities to the youths.

The research shows that the reason why betting games have a massive turnaround of youths in Nigeria is not majorly because of unemployment but as another means to a substantial financial individual/family income. Thus, Nigerian youths see betting games as an avenue to make more money. The study is the first of its kind to examine the nexus between betting games, technology and unemployment hence, its contribution to knowledge.

The Asian Handicap is a way to bet on soccer matches where payouts depend on an adjustment to the score that favors the weaker team. These bets can feature the possibility of all or half the bet being refunded and this makes the calculation of their expected return more complex than for traditional betting on a home win, away win or draw. We examine the behavior of odds in this market.

In addition to a using well-known publicly available source of information on Asian Handicap betting odds – which provides the average odds across a range of bookmakers – we have also sourced a large dataset of Asian Handicap odds offered by an individual bookmaker.

We show that bettors systematically lose more money on Asian Handicap bets where refunds are not possible than when it is possible to obtain a half refund. We also show that bets with the possibility of a full refund have the lowest loss rates. We demonstrate that this pattern of differences in loss rates across bets is predictable based on the odds quoted. This pattern could represent preferences, with gamblers disliking bets featuring potential refunds, but we argue the evidence points more towards gamblers incorrectly calculating expected loss rates.

Despite being one of the world's largest betting markets, there has been almost no previous research on the properties of the Asian Handicap soccer betting. Our finding of clear differences in returns on simultaneously available bets on the same team is also a new anomaly previously undocumented in any research on sports betting.

This study aims to identify institutional work mechanisms that public actors employ in market shaping.

The paper uses an abductive theorizing process, combining a literature review with an empirical exploration of three different market-shaping contexts.

The study identifies 20 granular mechanisms of institutional work that market-shaping public actors employ. These mechanisms are all potentially employable in creating, maintaining or disrupting markets. Institutional work vis-à-vis individual institutions may differ in direction from the institutional work vis-à-vis the market system. Public actors are not a homogeneous group but may have different values and support competing institutional logics even when operating in the same market.

The empirical data were limited to three cases in three small open economies. Data collected from other markets and with other methods would provide more rigorous insight into market-shaping public actors.

The findings revealed institutional work mechanisms that public actors can use to shape markets. Companies wanting to engage public actors in market shaping should be aware of the values and institutional logics that influence market-shaping public actors.

The paper unites and expands on the scattered knowledge regarding institutional work in market shaping. It illuminates and dissects the role of public actors in market shaping, challenging the reactive stance that is often assigned to them. The study provides a better understanding of how conflicting market views affect markets. It also brings insights into the interplay between market-shaping actions and the multiple levels of market systems.

This paper investigates the stock market reaction to three different events related to the UEFA Champions League – the announcements of draws, odds and match results. The aim of the paper is to test whether these events are informative for stock market operators, i.e. whether they produce abnormal returns.

Applying the event study methodology, the authors investigate the stock market reaction before (at two events: the draw date and on the release of betting odds) and after the matches of 11 listed soccer teams in the period 2003–2019. The authors also conduct OLS regression analyses in order to disentangle the impact of firm specific variables and match characteristics on cumulative abnormal returns.

This paper finds that match outcomes affect the stock market performance of listed teams, while the announcements of draws and odds do not. More specifically, the market does not consider match outcomes involving wins and ties as informative events, while it penalizes losing teams. Moreover, investor reactions to events related to the UCL competition depend more on match characteristics than on company specific variables.

The study enriches the ongoing debate about the impact of soccer team results on stock market performance in several ways: using the widest time span ever adopted in this area; focusing on UCL, which is the most important soccer competition played by private clubs; disentangling for the first time the effects of draws, odds release and sporting outcome on stock returns of listed soccer clubs.

The purpose of this paper is to identify if fraud theory models suggested over the years are applicable to match-fixing and if so, whether the Krambia-Kapardis’ (2016) holistic fraud and corruption prevention model can be used to reduce significantly match-fixing in football.

An online survey was developed by the authors and was administered to football stakeholders in Cyprus, namely, players, referees, coaches and team management.

The research questions, who are the initiators of match-fixing, why is match-fixing taking place and what is the best way to prevent or reduce match-fixing, have been answered, and these findings have enabled the authors to make policy recommendations.

The survey considered match-fixing in only one sport (football) while the number of respondent categories and the 335 usable questionnaires returned did not allow advanced statistical analysis of the data obtained.

The findings point to the need both for ethics and moral values to be installed in all the stakeholders through training and continuing education. It is also suggested that teams/clubs and related associations acting as regulators ought to implement governance principles and ethical programs, including whistleblowing lines and appoint integrity officers to minimize the match-fixing phenomenon. Furthermore, society, as well as government, sport regulators and sponsors, ought to encourage and demand fair play and integrity in sport through improved measures of governance and accountability and the implementation of ethical audits and public disclosure of audited financial statements of teams. Finally, sports integrity ought to be embedded in school curriculum from a very young age.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is an original contribution to knowledge that has impact on the future of sporting fairness and social legitimacy.

Indian Premier League (IPL) is one of the more popular cricket world tournaments, and its financial is increasing each season, its viewership has increased markedly and the betting market for IPL is growing significantly every year. With cricket being a very dynamic game, bettors and bookies are incentivised to bet on the match results because it is a game that changes ball-by-ball. This paper investigates machine learning technology to deal with the problem of predicting cricket match results based on historical match data of the IPL. Influential features of the dataset have been identified using filter-based methods including Correlation-based Feature Selection, Information Gain (IG), ReliefF and Wrapper. More importantly, machine learning techniques including Naïve Bayes, Random Forest, K-Nearest Neighbour (KNN) and Model Trees (classification via regression) have been adopted to generate predictive models from distinctive feature sets derived by the filter-based methods. Two featured subsets were formulated, one based on home team advantage and other based on Toss decision. Selected machine learning techniques were applied on both feature sets to determine a predictive model. Experimental tests show that tree-based models particularly Random Forest performed better in terms of accuracy, precision and recall metrics when compared to probabilistic and statistical models. However, on the Toss featured subset, none of the considered machine learning algorithms performed well in producing accurate predictive models.