Gambling Research in Sport Management: A Scoping Review

The purpose of this study was to conduct a scoping review of the sport management literature focusing on sports gambling. The authors examined n = 101 articles from two online databases (Scopus and JSTOR), using the Joanna Briggs Institute (2020) scoping review framework. Five consistently present themes were found in the literature from the thematic analysis: consumer behavior, market performance/efficiency, cheating/integrity of sport, the impact of fandom, and corporate social responsibility. Results show that the largest theme within the sport management research about gambling focuses on consumer behavior (39.6%), and researchers predominantly employ quantitative research methods (41.5%). In addition, scholars from the United States have dominated the published literature on sports gambling (49.5%), despite only recent legalization of the practice. Overall, this scoping review suggests that scholars should look for cross-cultural phenomena in the future concerning sports gambling within the sport management literature. Furthermore, researchers should place emphasis on corporate social responsibility and multimethod and multisport studies.