Money for nothing and kicks for free? – Aspects of the long-term relationship between sport and gambling in Britain
-
and
Summary
The intention here is to trace the development of the sport-gambling nexus in Britain from the early-nineteenth to the late-twentieth century. An overview of this kind facilitates an understanding of a relationship that has often been characterized as symbiotic. Over the long run, as Britain has transitioned from a pre-industrial to an industrial and then to a post-industrial society, the relationship between sport and gambling has remained intact. In particular, it survived a long period between the mid-nineteenth and the mid-twentieth centuries when the ideological hegemony of amateurism in British sport predisposed governing bodies to view gambling with suspicion and even, at times, hostility. The article draws extensively on recent published research into the history of sport in Britain and outlines key developments in the relationship between particular sports and gambling, notably cricket, football, horseracing, greyhound racing and pedestrianism. Recent changes related to the advent of online gambling are identified and briefly discussed, with particular reference to cricket.
Zusammenfassung
In diesem Beitrag wird die Verbindung zwischen Sport und Glücksspiel in Großbritannien in ihrer Entwicklung vom frühen 19. bis zum späten 20. Jahrhundert nachgezeichnet. Ein solcher Überblick dient dem Verständnis einer Wechselbeziehung, die oft als symbiotisch bezeichnet wurde. Während sich Großbritannien von einer vorindustriellen zu einer industriellen und dann zu einer postindustriellen Gesellschaft transformierte, blieb die Beziehung zwischen Sport und Wetten bzw. Glücksspiel intakt. Sie hat auch die lange Periode zwischen der Mitte des 19. und der Mitte des 20. Jahrhunderts überdauert, als die Sportverbände Glücksspielen aufgrund der ideologischen Hegemonie des Amateurgedankens mit Misstrauen, zeitweise sogar Feindseligkeit begegneten. Der Artikel stützt sich weitgehend auf neuere Forschungen zur Geschichte des Sports in Großbritannien und skizziert die wichtigsten Entwicklungen im Verhältnis von Sport und Glücksspiel am Beispiel ausgewählter Sportdisziplinen, vor allem von Cricket, Fußball, Pferderennen, Windhundrennen und Geher-Wettbewerben über lange Strecken (pedestrianism). Auch die Veränderungen der jüngeren Zeit im Zusammenhang mit dem Aufkommen von Online-Sportwetten werden erläutert und kurz erörtert, wobei ein besonderer Schwerpunkt auf Cricket gelegt wird.
9 Bibliography
Chinn, Carl (1991): Better Betting with a Decent Feller: Bookmaking, Betting and the British Working Class, 1750-1990. Hemel Hempstead: Harvester Wheatsheaf.Search in Google Scholar
Clapson, Mark (1992): A bit of a flutter: Popular Gambling and English Society, c. 1823-1961. Manchester: Manchester University Press.Search in Google Scholar
Colls, Robert (2020): This Sporting Life: Sport and Liberty in England, 1760-1960. Oxford: Oxford University Press.10.1093/oso/9780198208334.001.0001Search in Google Scholar
Cronin, Mike (2002): Arthur Elvin and the Dogs of Wembley. In: The Sports Historian. Vol. 22, Issue 1, pp. 100-114.10.1080/17460260209443683Search in Google Scholar
Edelman, Robert and Wilson Wayne (2017): Introduction. In: Robert Edelman/Wayne Wilson, (Hg.): The Oxford Handbook of Sports History. Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp. 1-12.10.1093/oxfordhb/9780199858910.001.0001Search in Google Scholar
Eisenberg, Christiane (2011): Playing the Market Game: Cash Prizes, Symbolic Rewards and the Professional Ideal in British Amateur Sport. In: Sport in History. Vol. 31, Issue 2, pp. 197-217.10.1080/17460263.2011.590025Search in Google Scholar
Fisher, John (2022): Cricket and social status in the early nineteenth century: the career of Richard Cheslyn 1997-1858. In: Sport in History. Vol. 42, Issue 2, pp. 159-182.10.1080/17460263.2021.1973547Search in Google Scholar
Gascoigne, Bamber (1993): Greyhound Racing. [online]. http://historyworld.net/Artckes/PlainTextArticles/asp?aid=2qe&pid=367.Search in Google Scholar
Gleaves, John (2012): Enhancing the Odds: Horse Racing, Gambling and the First Anti-Doping Movement in Sport 1889-1911. In: Sport in History. Vol. 32, Issue 1, pp. 26-52.10.1080/17460263.2012.666996Search in Google Scholar
Green, Geoffrey (1960): The Football Association. In: A.H. Fabian/Geoffrey Green (eds.): Association Football. London: Caxton Publishing Co.Search in Google Scholar
Griffin, Emma (2005): England’s Revelry; A History of Popular Sports and Pastimes 1660-1830. Oxford: Oxford University Press.10.5871/bacad/9780197263211.001.0001Search in Google Scholar
Hawkins, Ed (2015): Hell in a Handcart. [online]. https://www.espncricinfo.com/wisdenalmanack/content/story/908207.html [31.10.22].Search in Google Scholar
Holt, Richard (1989): Sport and the British: A Social History. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Search in Google Scholar
Huggins, Mike: (2000): Flat Racing and English Society 1790-1914. London: Frank Cass.Search in Google Scholar
Huggins, Mike (2007): ‘Betting, Sport and the British’, 1918-1939’. In: Journal of Social History. Vol. 41, Issue 2, pp. 283-306.10.1353/jsh.2008.0024Search in Google Scholar
Huggins, Mike (2009): Betting capital of the provinces: Manchester, 1800-1900. In: Manchester Region History Review. Vol. 20, pp. 24-45.Search in Google Scholar
Huggins, Mike (2013): Association Football, Betting and British Culture: The Strange Case of the 1930s Pools War. In: Sport History Review. Vol. 44, Issue 2, pp. 99-119.10.1123/shr.44.2.99Search in Google Scholar
Huggins, Mike, (2017): Football and Gambling. In: John Hughson/Kevin Moore/Ramon Spaaij/Joseph Maguire (Hg.): Routledge Handbook of Football Studies. Abingdon: Routledge, pp. 63-73.Search in Google Scholar
Huggins, Mike (2018): Match-fixing: an historical perspective. In: International Journal of the History of Sport. Vol. 35, Issue 2-3, pp. 123-140.10.1080/09523367.2018.1476341Search in Google Scholar
Inglis, Simon (1985): Soccer in the Dock: A History of British Football Scandals 1900 to 1965. London: Willow Books.Search in Google Scholar
Jackson, Alexander (2021): Football’s Great War: Association Football on the English Home Front, 1914-1918. Barnsley: Pen & Sword Military.Search in Google Scholar
Kohe, Geoffrey Z. (2015): For the Good of the Game? The Legacy of the Football Trust and the Football Pools, and the Dangerous Seduction of Political Promise. In: International Journal of the History of Sport. Vol. 32, Issue 11-12, pp. 1378-1394.10.1080/09523367.2015.1077810Search in Google Scholar
Laybourn, Keith (2007): Working-Class Gambling in Britain, c.1906-1960s: The Stages of the Political Debate. Lampeter: Edwin Mellen Press.Search in Google Scholar
Laybourn, Keith (2019): Going to the Dogs, A History of Greyhound Racing in Britain, 1926-2017. Manchester: Manchester University Press.10.7765/9781526114525.00015Search in Google Scholar
Martin, Derek (2021): A forgotten sport: Pedestrianism in the West Midlands. In: Midland History. Vol. 46, Issue 2, pp. 164-177.10.1080/0047729X.2021.1921430Search in Google Scholar
Mason, Tony (1980): Association Football and English Society 1863-1980. Brighton: Harvester Press.Search in Google Scholar
Mason, Tony (1988): Sport in Britain. London: Faber and Faber.Search in Google Scholar
McKibbin, Ross (1998): Classes and Cultures: England 1918-1951. Oxford: Oxford University Press.10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198206729.001.0001Search in Google Scholar
Munting, Roger (1989): Betting and Business: The Commercialisation of Gambling in Britain. In: Business History. Vol. 31, Issue 4, pp. 67-85.10.1080/00076798900000085Search in Google Scholar
Oldfield, Samantha-Jayne (2014): Running Pedestrianism in Victorian Manchester. In: Sport in History. Vol. 34, Issue 2, pp. 223-248.10.1080/17460263.2014.924668Search in Google Scholar
Pinfold, John (2008): Horse Racing and the Upper Classes in the Nineteenth Century. In: Sport in History. Vol. 28, Issue 3, pp. 414-430.10.1080/17460260802315496Search in Google Scholar
Porter, Dilwyn (2009): British Sport Transformed: Sport, Business and the Media since 1945. In: Richard Coopey/Peter Lyth (Hg.): Business in Britain in the Twentieth Century. Oxford: Oxford University Press.10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199226009.003.0018Search in Google Scholar
Reed, Phil (ed.) (2003): Football & Fortunes: The inside story of Littlewoods Football Pools, 1923-2003. Liverpool: Littlewoods Promotions Ltd.Search in Google Scholar
Swain, Peter (2012): Pedestrianism: the Public House and Gambling in Nineteenth-Century South-East Lancashire. In: Sport in History. Vol. 32, Issue 3, pp. 382-404.10.1080/17460263.2012.704680Search in Google Scholar
Tate, Steve (2009): Edward Hulton and sports journalism in late-Victorian Manchester. In: Manchester Region History Review. Vol. 20, pp. 46-67.Search in Google Scholar
Tate, Stephen (2020): A History of the British Sporting Journalist c.1850-1939; James Catton, Sports Reporter. Newcastle-upon-Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Publishing.Search in Google Scholar
Taylor, Matthew (2005): The Leaguers: The Making of Professional Football in England, 1900-1939. Liverpool: Liverpool University Press.10.5949/UPO9781846313486Search in Google Scholar
The Everton Collection (1919): Minutes of Directors, 21 January 1919. [online] https://www.evertoncollection.org.uk. [31.10.22].Search in Google Scholar
Vamplew, Wray (1989): ‘Horse Racing’. In Tony Mason (Hg.): Sport in Britain: A Social History. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 215-244.Search in Google Scholar
Vamplew, Wray (2018a): The Commodification of Sport: Exploring the Nature of the Sports Product. In: International Journal of the History of Sport. Vol. 35, Issue 7-8, pp. 659-672.10.1080/09523367.2018.1481832Search in Google Scholar
Vamplew, Wray (2018b): Products, Promotion and (Possibly) Profits: Sports Entrepreneurship Revisited. In: Journal of Sport History. Vol. 45, Issue 2, pp. 183-201.10.5406/jsporthistory.45.2.0183Search in Google Scholar
Wagg, Stephen (2018): Cricket: A Politcal History of the Global Game, 1945-2017. Abingdon: Routledge.10.4324/9781315733210Search in Google Scholar
Williams, Jack (1999): Cricket and England: A Cultural and Social History of the Inter-War Years. London: Frank Cass.Search in Google Scholar
Williams, Whiting (1921): Full Up and Fed Up. London: Allen and Unwin.Search in Google Scholar
© 2023 Walter de Gruyter GmbH, Berlin/Boston
Articles in the same Issue
- Frontmatter
- Editorial / Editorial
- Sportwetten in Wirtschaft und Gesellschaft seit dem Mittelalter
- Aufsätze / Articles
- Kaufmannswetten in der handelsrechtlichen Praxis, oder: Wie die Briten zum Sport kamen
- Money for nothing and kicks for free? – Aspects of the long-term relationship between sport and gambling in Britain
- Die Börse und das Wettbüro: Differenz und Konvergenz im 19. und 20. Jahrhundert
- Außer der Reihe: Kommentar / Miscellaneous: Commentary
- Potenziale und Bedarfe des informellen Sports – eine Reflexion anlässlich der Auftaktveranstaltung der Interessenvertretung des informellen Sports in Deutschland (ıdísıd)
- Rezensionen / Reviews
- Karl-Heinrich Bette und Felix Kühnle (2023): Flitzer im Sport – Zur Sozialfigur des Störenfrieds.
- Tagungsberichte / Conference Reports
- Bewegung erleben – Zur Phänomenologie des Sports
- Jahresinhalt Jg. 20, 2023 /Contents Vol. 20, 2023
- Gutachter*innen 2023 /Experts on the Peer Review 2023
Articles in the same Issue
- Frontmatter
- Editorial / Editorial
- Sportwetten in Wirtschaft und Gesellschaft seit dem Mittelalter
- Aufsätze / Articles
- Kaufmannswetten in der handelsrechtlichen Praxis, oder: Wie die Briten zum Sport kamen
- Money for nothing and kicks for free? – Aspects of the long-term relationship between sport and gambling in Britain
- Die Börse und das Wettbüro: Differenz und Konvergenz im 19. und 20. Jahrhundert
- Außer der Reihe: Kommentar / Miscellaneous: Commentary
- Potenziale und Bedarfe des informellen Sports – eine Reflexion anlässlich der Auftaktveranstaltung der Interessenvertretung des informellen Sports in Deutschland (ıdísıd)
- Rezensionen / Reviews
- Karl-Heinrich Bette und Felix Kühnle (2023): Flitzer im Sport – Zur Sozialfigur des Störenfrieds.
- Tagungsberichte / Conference Reports
- Bewegung erleben – Zur Phänomenologie des Sports
- Jahresinhalt Jg. 20, 2023 /Contents Vol. 20, 2023
- Gutachter*innen 2023 /Experts on the Peer Review 2023