Sports betting: history of a cultural industry (1922-1997)

Accompanying the setting up of the first soccer competitions since the end of the 19th century, betting competitions were the object of a decisive innovation at the beginning of the 1920s with the introduction of the principle of pooling bets. Like football itself, pari-mutuel betting on soccer matches first spread to England before conquering the entire European continent. The growth of pari-mutuel betting on soccer matches in Europe over several decades was not obvious. This distraction was not only distrusted by a part of society for moral and economic reasons, but also by the companies managing other gambling activities such as the national lottery or horse racing. Likewise, their progressive decline following the diffusion of the lottery was not more predictable. Based on documents found in several European countries, this book traces the history of pari-mutuel betting on soccer matches from its appearance in 1922 in Great Britain to the end of the 1990s and the birth of the first online sports betting.