Research Centre
Communication and Computing Research Centre

Date
2013

An exploration of the major intersections between online gambling and crime

There is little doubt that gambling is now within the mainstream of popular culture in the UK, as Gambling Commission statistics make abundantly clear. This growth in availability and popularity is mirrored in other jurisdictions throughout the world. Remote communications have been central to the increased availability of gambling. Most notably, the rapid development of the internet as a public and commercial vehicle provides significant opportunity for gambling online.

This project is an empirically driven investigation into the development, marketisation, regulation and use of online gambling organisations and their products. Data has been gathered over an eighteen-month period through a virtual ethnography of an online gambling subculture, a content, textual and visual analysis of e-gambling advertising and an examination of the records from a player protection and standards organisation that monitors online gambling sites.

The principal aims of this project are

• to examine the 'development' of online gambling
• to set out empirical evidence on online gambling and crime, explaining the prevalence, incidence and experience of a range of criminal activities
• to explore theoretical perspectives on the relationship between online gambling and crime
• to examine how online gambling and crime has been approached in practice by gamers, regulatory agencies and online gambling organisations
• to discuss criminal law and regulatory developments
• to evaluate past and present policy on online gambling

Researchers involved

Dr James Banks - Senior Lecturer in Criminology