About the Journal
Aims and Scope
Critical Gambling Studies (CGS) is an international journal established in 2019 to publish disciplinary and interdisciplinary research on gambling. It aims to address urgent questions raised by the social, technological, legal, and cultural entanglements of contemporary gambling.
The open access, double-anonymous, peer-reviewed journal is published bi-annually.
We are open to different theoretical frameworks and methodological traditions, including: phenomenology; ethnography; meta-analysis and big data analytics; Black studies, critical race, and Indigenous studies; critical disability studies; science and technology studies (STS); conjunctural analysis; experimental studies; survey methods; fieldwork; semiotic analysis; psychoanalysis; political economy; narrative analysis; statistical analysis and quantitative methods; and archival research.
We welcome original research and writing from researchers working in disciplines including: philosophy, psychology, anthropology, sociology, politics, criminology, information science, aesthetics, history, economics, literature, theology, art history, architecture, tourism and leisure studies, public health, and law. We are also keen to consider interdisciplinary approaches to gambling research within an activist tradition. Our focus is primarily on original research in the humanities and social sciences (including law and policy studies), but we welcome accessible and critical work in medicine, life sciences, environmental sciences, and other disciplines. While we warmly welcome critical and original work on gambling addictions, including that which interrogates concepts and measures of disordered or pathological gambling, we are keen to move beyond addiction research as the primary focus of gambling studies.
The Editors welcome proposals for special issues on current themes within gambling studies.
Peer Review Process
Critical Gambling Studies uses a double-anonymous peer-review process, with an option for reviewers to identify themselves to the author and readers after all editorial decisions are finalized. Manuscripts are first reviewed by an editor who has no conflicts of interest with the article authors to ensure that they meet the submission guidelines and scope of the journal. Manuscripts that pass the internal review are subsequently sent out for assessment to two external reviewers, who evaluate the manuscript based on the following eight criteria: research, methodology, argument, use of evidence, theoretical frameworks, quality of writing, originality, and organization and structure.
Reviewers are provided with an evaluation rubric for the eight criteria, which guides how provide feedback and make a final publication recommendation based on rubric scores. The full rubric is available on the Submissions page.
Publication Frequency
Journal articles are published bi-annually in complete issues with a Table of Contents and full page numbering.
Open Access Policy
Critical Gambling Studies is a diamond open-access journal, meaning that article authors do not pay an open access fee. It provides immediate open access to its content on the principle that making research freely available to the public supports the greater global exchange of knowledge.
Unless otherwise indicated, this work is licensed under an Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. Authors retain copyright of their work, with first publication rights granted to Critical Gambling Studies.
This license allows others to share the work for non-commercial purposes, with an acknowledgement of the work's authorship and initial publication in this journal. If others remix or modify the material, the revised version may not be shared without express permission from the copyright holder. If an author requires a different type of Creative Commons license, for example for funding compliance reasons, we will vary the license offered. We have chosen a standard CC-BY-NC-ND license because we think it offers the best model of non-commercial open access, while limiting opportunities for commercially derivative use.
Data Sharing
In keeping with our Open Access principles, CGS also believes in open sharing of research data. Authors submitting their research to CGS are encouraged to deposit their data in a research data repository and to cite and link to their data in their submission. CGS is unable to provide support for data deposition but will include a data availability statement with the article upon publication. The author(s)’ ability or willingness to deposit data does not affect a submission’s consideration or acceptance for publication in the journal.
Note: To maintain anonymous peer-review, a link to the data repository should not be shared when the manuscript is submitted to the journal. If the manuscript is accepted, authors will be asked to include a link to a research data repository where available.
Publication Ethics Policies
The everyday operations of CGS follow the guidelines and are informed by the case studies of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE), an international and interdisciplinary organization committed to fostering academic integrity and transparency in Open Access Journal publishing. More information about CGS's governance and ethical policies is available on the Governance Standards page.
Conflicts of Interest
Critical Gambling Studies has rigorous requirements for the types of conflicts of interest to be reported by authors and reviewers, and for situations where the editor(s) must recuse themselves where potential conflicts of interest exist. These requirements are detailed on the Governance Standards page.
Academic Misconduct Policy
In cases of suspected data falsification or plagiarism (including redundancy/“self-plagiarism” and use of AI-generated text), the editors will investigate and may use plagiarism screening tools or AI detection tools to help determine whether plagiarism has occurred. When allegations of misconduct are raised through the peer review process or after publication, they will always be investigated by one or more of the journal editors. The editor(s) will follow relevant COPE procedures and flowcharts. If allegations are substantiated in regard to a published article, a post-publication notice will be published and linked to the article. In rare circumstances, the journal may issue a retraction of an article. All final decisions about how to respond to allegations of misconduct will be made collectively by the three editors (unless one or more editors has recused themselves due to a conflict of interest).
Post-Publication Discussions and Corrections
CGS welcomes post-publication discussion of published articles. Critiques regarding publishing ethics concerns may be sent to uagaming@ualberta.ca. Discussions and critique regarding other issues with a published article may be submitted as a Commentary article and will be considered for publication in a future issue, according to COPE’s Handling of post-publication critiques flowchart. If the critique is to be published, the original authors will be invited to submit a response to be published with the critique. See our Submission Guidelines for more information about submitting a commentary.
Discussion of CGS Blog entries can be made directly on each blog entry on the interactive blog website.
Archiving
All articles published in CGS are archived via LOCKSS and the PKP Preservation Network.
