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A little-known “lottery fever” has spread to many parts of rural China over the past 10 years. This is driven by participation in underground lotteries with local bookies. It is called liuhecai, which is the name of the Hong Kong lottery, and is based on guessing the bonus number of the Hong Kong Mark Six lottery. Such lotteries are illegal, but are an open secret. This chapter seeks to understand the meaning of this apparently irrational lottery fever: why people participate in it, why they believe the conspiracy theory that it is rigged (and yet still participate), and why similar lotteries have emerged in both capitalist Taiwan and post-socialist China at this particular time.

This chapter provides a study of how gambling companies use the cultural and social capital of Newcastle United Football Club, in the English Premier League, to establish a connection with the club's fans to promote gambling. Newcastle United had two gambling sponsors during the period of this study, from 2017 to 2020, including a front of shirt sponsor, FUN88, an online gambling brand with a large following in Asia. Data were gathered from a range of sources, including from the social media platform, Twitter, to identify the methods the company used to engage fans and to encourage betting on the outcome of matches. The data from the study were explored thematically to describe the relationship developed between the football club and its principal gambling sponsor in order to drive business for the latter with the club's followers. The findings showed how FUN88 evoked Newcastle United's cultural tradition to promote gambling and generate business globally whilst the club actively promoted their ‘primary partner’ through its media channels. The lure of free match tickets was used to encourage fan engagement. Corporate practices promote the consumption of unhealthy commodities through their marketing whilst consumers (fans) are responsibilised for any harms engendered by their gambling practices. The ubiquity of gambling brands has enabled gambling to become a normalised part of football culture. The findings from this study show how FUN88 has used all elements of the sponsorship assemblage to create an emotional connection whilst engaging with Newcastle United's fans to increase consumption of its products.

Gambling is well-recognised as a significant public health threat. However, current responses to gambling still primarily focus on individualised responsible gambling paradigms, which neglects to consider the range of commercial and political determinants that contribute to gambling harm and how it might influence young people's gambling attitudes and consumption intentions. This includes the marketing tactics used by the gambling industry to normalise harmful gambling products as embedded in everyday life, including in sport. Young people have demonstrated an in-depth gambling brand awareness and can even recall specific strategies used in gambling advertising that might appeal to children. There have been continuous calls for action to protect children and young people from the commercial marketing of gambling products from a range of stakeholders, including young people and their parents. Young people and their parents are very supportive of increased regulations on gambling advertising, particularly during sport, and have called for sporting teams and codes to reject sponsorship deals with gambling companies. However, a heavy reliance on industry self-regulation has meant that governments across the world have decided that the costs associated with exposing children and young people to pervasive gambling marketing are outweighed by perceived benefits that gambling provides to businesses benefiting financially from gambling. Comprehensive curbs on marketing, as seen in tobacco, are required to significantly reduce young people's exposure to gambling advertising and ultimately prevent the next generation of harm.

The legalization of gambling is moving this once deviant sector into the mainstream of commercial entertainment, with the global hotel-casino increasingly adopted as a state initiative on economic redevelopment. But corporate capitalist interests do not result in universal trends since local regulatory frameworks are crucial. Although gambling is being normalized as mass consumption, it remains to some extent an exceptional business, subject both to global innovation in the technology of surveillance and variable local controls. The paper argues that the effects of glocalization on the organization of work are equally variable, drawing on fieldwork and case studies from the USA, Australasia and the U.K.

This chapter uses a case study approach to examine an innovative corporate social responsibility (CSR) program designed to engage and motivate employees. MGM Resorts International, one of the largest casino gaming corporations, debuted the “Inspiring Our World” program in 2012 and continues to use it as a guide for the company’s CSR efforts. This chapter looks specifically at the program’s internal efforts to involve employees in CSR actions and considers how a program of this sort can benefit the corporation via employee engagement. It also discusses the important role that HR managers can take in facilitating such a program to ensure it has the best chance at success.