Call for Papers
Online gambling is growing, but regulation of this sector largely follows models developed for land-based provision. Evidence from several studies has shown that online gambling is a burden on public health and welfare at an unforeseen level of severity, with high intensity products, targeted marketing and other industry practices involving high risk for consumers and populations.
Digital supply offers new potential for harm prevention, but techniques and their implementation require online-specific regulatory approaches that face complex challenges from other perspectives and interests. Preventive policies require new research to evaluate their efficiency and feasibility. In addition, strong political will is needed to frame policy so that it aims at limiting damage to individuals and societies rather than advancing commercial interests.
This book puts together visions and experiences on proposed, existing and tested policies to regulate online gambling in the interest of public health and welfare. We take a wide perspective on regulations, evaluating prescriptive measures as well as industry self-regulation. The ubiquitous nature of online supply requires that challenges are faced at different levels ranging from local to national and international contexts. Policy approaches need to be considered in their several stages from formulation to implementation, enforcement, and evaluation.
We invite empirical studies and reflexive summaries of research on key topics from all geographical contexts.
The edited collection tackles three general topics including (but not limited to) possible themes:
Part I: Framing and targets of policy
Contributions to this part focus on how regulatory policy of online gambling has been framed, by whom, and what its main targets are.
Framing of gambling regulation includes public health objectives, but also other regulatory priorities, including ‘responsible gambling’, economic motives and prevention of unlicensed gambling offer. The underlying expectations and aims of policies regulating online gambling can have important implications on their implementation.
Responsibilities for (online) gambling policy are divided between regulators, operators and third parties including banks. Corporate social responsibility and self-regulation are likely to advance different policy objectives in comparison to centralised and governmentally organised regulation. Contributions are welcome on these topics related to different responsibilities.
Stakeholders with private and public interests shape how gambling is perceived. Corporate CSR and charitable activity can, for example, frame gambling as a public good. Online gambling complicates supply and value chains of the industry, which restructures the interests of their stakeholders. Competition on global markets may have exhausted its public revenue potential altogether, undermining the weight of civil society associations as pressure groups. Instead, national regulators face the challenge of cross-border supply, associated with powerful financial interests behind it. We invite contributions to reflect on the structure and impact of multinational online operators and associated stakeholder interests.
Policy targets are also shaped by existing evidence. Focus on problem gambling prevalence rather than a range of different harms, can shift regulatory priorities and policy directions. We are interested in understanding a wider range of gambling harm indicators and risk factors, and how these can influence policy targets. These can include, for example, product characteristics, payment characteristics, spending relative to income, indebtedness, mental health impairment, suicide risk, and relationship breakdown.
Part II: Methods and tools for harm prevention
This part focuses on concrete policy methods and tools that can be used to prevent and reduce harms from online gambling. We are interested in a wide range of approaches, from concrete limit-setting to more systemic solutions.
Individual limit-setting is one tool that is enabled by identified gambling in online provision. Individual level limit-setting can give high priority to measures that eliminate supply in excess of limits, efforts to recruit self-excluded individuals as customers, unpermitted loans, and marketing to under-age and otherwise protected populations. We welcome contributions on the emphasis of preventative regulation given the expansion of online access, and evaluative papers on tools designed for this purpose, including operator-specific systems and centralised models.
Data and algorithms using behavioural tracking data are used by gambling companies to boost their business by profiling, targeting, and cross-analysing data from various sources. Data and algorithms can also be used to identify harmful gambling patterns. Little research has critically assessed these data-driven practices, particularly from the harm prevention perspective.
Limiting availability and accessibility can be more difficult to implement in online environments in comparison to land-based markets. We are interested in any approaches focusing on limiting availability of online gambling in licensed and unlicensed markets. In online gambling, many availability limits pertain to preventing unlicensed gambling offer: any regulation that aims to minimise harm requires that it is not circumvented by unlicensed or illegal operators. We are interested in how this focus on restricting unlicensed provision is compatible with regulating licensed operators and whether this focus on channelling reduces overall harm.
Regulation of the wider online ecosystem can expand the regulatory reach. Online gambling is integrally linked with various online infrastructures, including payment services, product developers, block chain technologies, investors, test houses, or social media. Little is currently known about how to regulate these other sectors and what the wider ecosystem means for the prevention of gambling harm.
Part III: Reach of regulation and global collaboration
The third part of the book focuses on how global collaboration could be constructed to better regulate an industry that defies national borders and regulatory reach. We are particularly interested in contributions on new avenues for international frameworks and collaboration.
Reach of regulatory control and powers becomes reduced when global gambling operations are situated in offshore or cross-border jurisdictions and companies expand their operations into new markets and geographical locations. We are interested in how the globalisation development affects national regulatory options and possibilities in terms of setting and enforcing regulations.
Global responsibility is required to tackle a global industry. Online supply improves the industry’s capacity to expand their markets to new populations, including the United States and countries in the Global South. Companies benefit from global markets by establishing in jurisdictions offering low taxation and relaxed regulation. This part of the book focuses on how to build global responsibility to prevent further exploitation. We invite strategic case studies on efforts to regulate market expansion and its consequences.
International collaboration is needed in online environments that can no longer be controlled with local-level policy. Online gambling markets are currently regulated by national governments with legal and administrative authority only within their own jurisdictions. Transnational marketing and supply of online services require regulatory actions by international organisations. Several treaties administered by European, Asian, American and United Nations institutions could incorporate gambling into their frameworks. The WHO and the Council of Europe have strategic roles in overseeing progress in taking on this responsibility. We invite papers on the available options and facilities in this area of intensive discussions and debate.
Submitting your work
Contributions are to be written in British English, adhere to the APA 7 style for referencing, and not exceed 4,000 words (excluding references).
Target publisher: Palgrave
Please express your intention of contribution by sending an abstract/short chapter outline to the editors by May 31st, 2025.
Full chapter deadline is on December 31st, 2025.
Please observe: We do not accept studies funded directly by the gambling industry and its subsidiaries into this collection.
Editors
Michael Egerer michael.egerer@helsinki.fi
Sébastien Berret sebastien.berret@helsinki.fi
Janne Nikkinen janne.nikkinen@helsinki.fi
