Sport, gambling, and match-fixing

Gambling has emerged as a double-edged sword for contemporary sport: it serves as a key source of revenues, while simultaneously posing serious challenges. This chapter provides a critical understanding of the social forces, regulations, and discourses around today’s sports under the influence of gambling. The chapter starts with a brief historical overview of the fluctuating relationship between sports and gambling. It outlines how the financial-ethical trade-offs have governed the relationship between sports and gambling and continue to raise integrity and public health issues. Narrowing the focus to the issue of match-fixing, the chapter also reviews diverse approaches adopted: economic, investigative-journalistic, sociocultural, and institutional perspectives. Finally, it discusses how the ongoing policy discourses of sport integrity constitute potential debates surrounding the ethical codes of conduct in sport.