ABSTRACT
Social betting apps, (e.g. Tedbets, Youbetme, Betable and BuddyBet) are new mobile platforms that mediate wagering among friends by providing a system through which the parameters of the bet are established and a payout guaranteed. Accessed via smartphones, these apps fall into the category of what we have previously termed ‘mobile social gambling’, an evolving set of techno-social assemblages. In this chapter the authors conduct a techno-cultural analysis of these apps, framing this critique within Jodi Dean’s notion of communicative capitalism. Social betting apps establish new communicative configurations among gamblers/gamers and between gamblers and companies. What players look for is not a ‘big win’ but fun and social capital in the form of reputation; what the companies rely upon is not compulsive play, but compulsive communication. For centuries, betting among friends (on sports, elections, trivia facts, future events, etc.) has been a common, de-institutionalised everyday practice for millions of individuals around the world. Casual betting is a cultural and communicative practice where money circulates freely among individuals, and contrary to most forms of gambling, there is no ‘house’ to oversee and regulate transactions. Albarrán-Torres and Goggin argue that social betting apps are politically problematic as they profit from the user’s social clout and from a communicative act that was not previously institutionalised.
