ABSTRACT
This chapter offers a description and theorisation of a new media and cultural form that I call ‘gamble-play’, a term central to this book, which helps explain changes in contemporary forms of digital gambling. This media and cultural form is the product of a shift that is taking place at the intersection of gambling, entertainment, social media and finance. Gamble-play is a set of media platforms and practices in which gambling situations are staged through digital means and chance events are produced through algorithms. Digital gamble-play privileges the ‘fun’ aspects of gambling over winning or losing, establishing new dynamics of seduction and control. Gamble-play consists of two related cultural tendencies. First, gambling practices become more gamelike. Second, gaming practices adopt the appearance of gambling.
