This book presents a rigorous interdisciplinary examination of the evolving relationships between sport, betting, and crime - now widely regarded as the most significant threat to the integrity and sustainability of modern sport. It provides a critical framework for understanding how these forces interact in an increasingly globalised and digitally mediated sporting and sport betting ecosystem.
Despite being routinely described as the greatest threat to contemporary sport, competition manipulation remains poorly defined, and successive institutional and political attempts to clarify the phenomenon have failed to achieve conceptual precision and practical coherence. Too often, it is argued, efforts to promote and protect sport integrity have been reduced to the prevention of sport betting fraud. This book is the first monograph to interrogate a broad range of real-world integrity conflicts arising where sport converges with global online betting markets. Combining economic, philosophical, and political analysis, it develops a comprehensive account of the structural, ethical, and policy challenges defining this new sport-integrity-betting ecosystem.
The book is written for researchers, policymakers, and practitioners working in sports ethics, sports management, criminology, sport governance, sport sociology, and political science related with sport issues, as well as those in the betting and regulatory sectors seeking a deeper conceptual understanding of contemporary sport integrity threats.
Mike McNamee is Professor of Ethics at KU Leuven, Belgium, and Professor of Applied Ethics at Swansea University, UK. He was a pioneer of the field of sports ethics, producing the first international collection of works in the field with Jim Parry (Ethics and Sport, 1998), establishing the first international journal in the field (Sport, Ethics and Philosophy, 2007), and authoring/editing numerous books and collections, including Routledge's landmark Ethics and Sport book series. He founded the world's first master's degree in sport ethics and integrity programme (MAiSI) and is programme director of the international doctoral programme in sport ethics and integrity (DAiSI). He is or has been a member of many expert groups in sports ethics-related issues for the European Commission, the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, the United Nations Office of Counter Terrorism, the Union of European Football Associations (UEFA), and the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA). He has published over 200 scholarly works.
Marcelo Moriconi is Researcher and Professor at the Instituto Universitario de Lisboa (Iscte), Portugal, and its Centre of International Studies (CEI-Iscte). He has a multidisciplinary career with a degree in journalism and communication, postgraduate studies in sociology, and a PhD in political science. He has researched and taught in academic institutions in Latin America and Europe. He is a member of the Executive Committee of the Latin American Political Science Association. He has developed significant research on corruption, illegal markets, deviant behaviours, sport-betting-related crimes, and sport integrity and has coordinated or taken part in several international projects funded by the European Commission in these issues. He has published books, more than 15 book chapters, and 50+ articles in top-tier journals.
